


A Good Officer

by hoc_voluerunt



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Aboriginal Australian Character, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Javert Survives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Race Changes, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Original Character(s), Nonbinary Character, Other, Panic Attacks, Racism, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:49:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 101,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoc_voluerunt/pseuds/hoc_voluerunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jean Valjean (now Fauchelevent) opened a café in Newtown with his daughter, he never expected to be brought face to face with his greatest fears and his oldest foe. When Inspector Javert first visited the new café across the road from the police station, he never expected to see a face which stirred old memories and new emotions. But the path their acquaintance leads them on is a dangerous one, which will threaten to shatter everything Javert thought he knew about himself.</p><p>Is self-destruction all there is to be achieved, or is it enough to live for the smile of an ex-convict, and the possibility of becoming a good police officer? </p><p>(Modern Sydney coffeeshop AU, combining M-sur-M and Paris eras, set in some weird dystopian AU where there aren’t already three cafés on Australia Street alone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            When Madeleine’s café opened up opposite the police station, Inspector Javert was awash with relief. The nearest café was two blocks away on King Street, outside of his commute, and, well, it was a Gloria Jeans, so the less said about it, the better. This independent place would, without a doubt, be miles better – and better placed – for his and his colleagues’ coffee needs.

            What he did not anticipate, was the shop’s owner.

 

            Jean Fauchelevent was a very rich man who looked like nothing more than an average, middle-class dad. There was much about him that was a mystery, even to his daughter, Cosette; but there was something about his kind, and sometimes sad, smile while forbade pressing questions. He owned a number of properties in and around Sydney, and when Cosette was accepted into the University of Sydney, he moved them both to Newtown for her convenience. Cosette, knowing he needed something to do with his time, convinced him to start up a business. Quite by accident, one of the few commercial properties available was on Australia Street, and so Jean Fauchelevent ended up opening a café directly across from the institution he still, at heart, couldn’t help but fear.

            It did not go as poorly as his nightmares insisted it would. Cosette moved happily up and down King Street between university and home, and he himself got on well with the mixture of police officers, students, and young families who visited his shop.

            Inspector Javert’s familiar, fearful countenance, however, was a very unpleasant surprise.

 

            He swirled into the shop at 8:45 in the morning, somehow still wearing a greatcoat in October, and staring about him as if, in every corner, he suspected a trap to be a laid or a crime to be in progress. Jean suspected that, had he been looking at the clock, the minute would have ticked over in time with Javert’s foot crossing the threshold. His steps to the counter were measured, and his dark eyes bright, if shadowed by exhaustion. When he reached the counter, he seemed to search Jean’s face.

            “Good morning,” Jean smiled, hoping desperately that Javert would at least postpone his triumphant arrest until he’d tricked Jean into leaving the shop.

            “Espresso, please,” Javert said, low and steady.

            “Of course.” Any moment now, the handcuffs would be out, and his beautiful life would be over, merely the brief lie he always knew it to be. “Take away, or have here?”

            “Take away.”

            Any moment now.

            “That’ll be two dollars fifty, thank you.”

            Javert handed over the money (in exact change) with a small look of surprise in his quirking brow and the shrug in the lines around his mouth. Then he walked away from the counter, eyes glossing over the small collection of pastries in the glass cabinets around it, and stood with his back to the rear wall of the shop, waiting for his coffee.

            A few minutes later, Cosette handed him his coffee, and he swept out of the shop again, looked both ways at the curb, and crossed the street, disappearing into the dull, municipal concrete on the other side.

            Jean loosed a breath he had not quite realised he was holding, and smiled at the next customer.

 

            He slid to a halt with a faint squeal of bicycle brakes outside of the police station. As he always did, Javert dismounted with a casual swing of his leg, carried his bike up the two flights of stairs to his office, and there dropped off his helmet, changed his shirt, washed his face, and slipped into his greatcoat. Then he descended the stairs and went out again, crossing the road to Madeleine’s for the first time.

            From what he could see, the shop was, well, _sweet._ It had brightly-painted walls – the entire side wall opposite the espresso machines was covered with blackboard paint and scribbles of chalk – but he appreciated the lack of gaudy wall hangings or extraneous decorations around the counter and machines. It was inviting, but practical; clean, comfortable, and shaded by the trees on the footpath. He wondered if it had air conditioning, and imagined it as a haven come summer.

            He stepped up to the counter, and was greeted with a smile. He wanted to abhor it – saccharine customer service had always grated on his nerves – but, inexplicably, he could not. There was something about the middle-aged, Middle-Eastern man which looked familiar, but between his soft-looking, white hair, and that calm, kind smile, he could not place it. His hand-written name badge read ‘Jean’.

            “Good morning,” he said, and Javert wanted to scoff, while being simultaneously certain that the man meant it. He steeled himself.

            “Espresso, please.”

            He had been perfectly calm, so why was ‘Jean’ looking at him like he’d grown a second head?

            “Of course,” he said, still smiling that odd, infuriating smile. “Take away or have here?”

            Javert knew the drill, of course, but he let ‘Jean’ go through the motions, and said a perfunctory, “Take away.”

            It was a little cheaper than expected, and Javert unintentionally let an expression of admiration cross his face as he left the counter. He _still_ couldn’t place the man’s face.

            The young woman who handed him his coffee was only barely briefer with her smile, and lacking a name badge. Javert nodded his thanks, and left the shop, determinedly not looking back at ‘Jean’ as he strode through the open door and onto the street.

            The coffee was very good. Javert smiled. Across the street, someone stared in horror at the sight.

 

            After a fortnight, it became clear that Javert was not on the cusp of arresting Jean for some past or present minor breach of the law. Very soon, he was coming to Madeleine’s almost every morning, and sometimes on his lunch break too, though it seemed he didn’t take these as often as he was meant to. Jean had more than once seen him storm into the shop with a sandwich in his hand and a pile of files under his coat, ordering an espresso and grumbling about his work being needlessly interrupted. He would sit at a corner table for an hour and scratch away at the files – stoically ignoring Jean’s daughter and her increasingly large gaggle of friends who kept showing up – while the coffee beside him slowly went cold. Whenever this happened, he would promptly refuse Jean’s offer of a replacement drink, knock back the remaining coffee, and leave the shop again on thunderous feet. It felt to Jean as if he were avoiding his eye. When once Jean had offered to refill Javert’s cup for free, the inspector had baulked at the idea, refusing him as if in horror of the very idea of drinking unpaid-for coffee.

            On the other side of the road, Javert kept working. Between the petty muggings, traffic offenses, drug possession charges, and occasional homicide, he was struggling through what he had unconsciously labelled ‘The Most Important Case of His Career’. TheThénardiers were infamous in most police stations across Sydney: on both sides, the family descended from Chinese immigrants from the first gold rush, but if these families had once been decent workers, their legacies had been well and truly sullied by the efforts of their children. Together, the Thénardiers had swindled, lied, and stolen their way through a variety of professions, each time leaving just enough evidence to warrant police intervention, but never enough to gain proper convictions. A few months’ jail time, or community service hours which inevitably went ignored, were all that was delivered, and with each new child they had borne had come another excuse to keep them out of prison. Javert was certain that the children would have been better off even in the same foster system which had hardly supported him, but he did not dare voice his arguments to his superiors.

            If the Thénardiers were known throughout Sydney, then the Minette gang and their collection of drug-dealing, murderous, extortionist, blackmailing, bribing, threatening fraudsters were at least as influential throughout the inner west. In a few months, they had resurfaced within Javert’s Local Area Command, heading everything from dealing to the students, to skimming money from local charities, to assaults and murders in the narrow roads off King Street. Javert had evidence that they were stealing medical-grade narcotics from the RPA hospital; and that the Thénardiers had become their allies. There was an almost innumerable amount of petty thefts and street crimes attributable to the Minette gang: ‘almost’, because Javert was the only one who had bothered to count the number of unsolved crimes, compare them to the solved, and generate a probability for how many were likely to have been committed by Thénardier and his fellows.

            His superiors were not interested in the equations.

            Nevertheless, between the Minette investigations, and the odd, tight, fluttering feeling he kept getting in his chest whenever Jean from Madeleine’s gave him that patient, indulgent smile, his lingering suspicions about why the man looked so familiar were losing precedence. He wanted to parse the feeling – take it to pieces and examine them like evidence, draw _some_ kind of reasonable conclusion from them – but in his gut, he didn’t want to go anywhere near it. Jean’s clothes were neat, his manner warm, and there was nothing suspicious about his business, except perhaps how often he gave away free food to students and locals who were short on cash. His white hair still looked softer than silk, and, beneath his shirtsleeves and snug vests, there looked to be a firmness and strength which was belied by his years and gentle, calloused hands.

            And he worked an espresso machine like a demon. The coffee beans, bought straight from Campos, were of exceptional quality, and he offered different blends for those more picky about their choices (which Javert was not). There was talk of introducing filter coffee with free refills for the types of students who camped down with two tables in the corner to work through the day; more than a few of these, Javert knew, were friends of Jean’s daughter, and he had grown to recognise some of the ones who were around more than twice a week with the young woman. Some of them he also recognised from rallies and arrests: even from looking at them, he knew they were troublemakers, well-intentioned but with no respect for authority and a distaste for the police which was visible in their expressions when he or his colleagues arrived.

            Regardless of the clientele, at Madeleine’s the milk was never burnt, the coffee always rich and dark, and there was never too much foam on a latte. The first time Javert had wavered and ordered a flat white, he had been overjoyed at the smoothness of it. After a month, half the station house was drinking at Madeleine’s, and it was almost entirely down to Javert having once blandly mentioned to one of the probies that the coffee there was “exceptional”. Despite his tone, the young woman had proved her potential by understanding precisely what he meant.

            But there were few as regular as Inspector Javert. With the undeniable onset of summer weather in November, he finally abandoned his greatcoat, and appeared at last with three bright stars shining on each of his shoulders, his pale blue shirt always neatly pressed, and his firearm on full display, holstered on his thigh. Having once gotten special dispensation for the style during an undercover investigation, he wore his greying hair long – it reached well past his shoulders when loose – but tied into a neat bun just below the level of his cap. No one had ever dared to tease him about it, before or after the ‘man-bun’ trend, because no one in their right mind would ever have mistaken him for a hipster; and so he was oblivious to his unintentional sense of style. If the way Jean sometimes pressed his lips together when he glanced at Javert’s nape was any indication, he had something to say on the matter; but as Javert never saw the expression, he never had call to question it.

 

* * *

 

            Officially, they were the Race and Class Discussion Group, affiliated with the University of Sydney’s Queer Action Collective. Unofficially, they called themselves _Les Amis de l’ABC_ , having all, coincidentally, studied at least a few years of French, and all appreciating the pun a little too much. There were plenty of students and activists who dropped in and out of meetings and events, but there was a core group – the officers and SRC and Union contacts, and the most devoted members – at least one of whom could, at any time of the day, be found in the queerspace, probably either arguing, laughing uncontrollably, or asleep. Occasionally, Marius could be found studying.

            The leader, without a doubt, was Enjolras. Born of quite rich Chinese parents, he _had_ a first name, but he didn’t use it, less because he didn’t like it, and more because the very presence of the name “Jessica” anywhere near him seemed to inspire a sort of irrational spate of misgendering. His first QuAC meeting had seen him righteously instigating a pronoun round and then having to explain the definitions of “transgender” and “demiboy” four times. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the need for education; it was having to do it in a self-professed queer-friendly space that was particularly tiring. His passion made him a lot of friends and quite a few enemies; but if there was one thing that the allies and dissenters alike could agree on, it was that Enjolras was _gorgeous_. His black hair was thick and glossy, naturally smooth against his head, and though he was slim, his hips still curved a little, and the angles of his face threw shadows under his high, delicate cheekbones in the right light. His eyes, when dormant, were dark and deep; when roused, they blazed. Enjolras attended every rally against transphobic violence, budget cuts, Aboriginal community closures, university fee deregulation, and homophobia that he could, and every time he gave a speech, or shouted slogans through a megaphone, or chanted, placard-brandishing, at the police, his whole being seemed to light up with passion and rage, in defence of the downtrodden, in attack against the privileged. Enjolras was the kind of person who could convince even the most cynical that the future would be greater, and brighter, than the past. In his second year, he had splashed purple and grey paint over the sexualised images in the queerspace, and been unanimously voted in as Queer Officer.

            Enjolras’ great virtue was his undying fury at injustice. His great flaw was the speed with which this fury rose, sometimes without heed for the limitations of his own experience. This was what Combeferre was for.

            Combeferre wore rich-coloured jumpers with elbow patches, skinny jeans in muted browns, and square, black-rimmed glasses. Despite the disbelief of others, he bought all these things from op-shops, and accidentally achieved the pinnacle of Typo aesthetic. His mother was Fijian, his father Maori, and though he loved them dearly, he rarely saw them, having moved to Sydney from Adelaide to study and finally start dressing to accommodate his dysphoria. Like Enjolras, he never used his given name, and like Enjolras, he believed in the future, things over which they had bonded from the first. Unlike Enjolras, he liked being referred to by a nickname, and was more interested in education reform and legal precedent than outright revolt. He spoke in a voice both soft and arresting, very calmly pointing out when Enjolras barrelled over complications of class or started victim-blaming, to the point that his sense of humour was lost on most of the people he met. Enjolras had once said that when Combeferre made a joke, you would only realise the next day; when he insulted you, it would take a week, but it would definitely hurt. He lived in a cramped little flat in Mortdale with Enjolras, and was studying to become a nurse; Enjolras often told him he should aim higher and become a doctor so there would be at least one reliably trans-friendly GP in Sydney.

            At any rally, meeting, or social event, Enjolras and Combeferre were almost always to be seen with one other; and they were usually accompanied by a young man who went by ‘Courfeyrac’: partly, the joke went, out of peer pressure from the other two, and partly because he was terrifically embarrassed by _Jackson Rohan Daniel_ , as his parents had named him.

            Courfeyrac, by his own and others’ declaration, was the token rich cis able-bodied white male of the group. He lived with his parents in a Cremorne mansion, wore an embarrassing amount of salmon-coloured shorts and thongs, and had lush, brown hair which somehow seemed to always fall in a perfect, feather-light sweep across his brow. His secret, he would say, was privilege; in reality, it was twenty minutes in front of a mirror. He was easy to like, and easy to love, with a quick, smirking grin and a loud voice, and a drive for self-improvement which had surprised and impressed Enjolras to no end when he had first taken over in a meeting to define “nonbinary” when Enjolras had responded to the question with a weary snarl. When Combeferre had first walked into a QuAC meeting, Courfeyrac had buried his face between Enjolras’ shoulder and the back of the sofa, and groaned “Oh my God, I am _so gay,”_ ; six months later, they had started dating, and between Combeferre’s wry composure and Courfeyrac’s tendency to kick his legs when he laughed sitting down, they made a very extreme couple.

            When Enjolras joined the duo – either at the heads of marches or as their platonic partner – the three were a force to be reckoned with.

 

            “Marius, my child! How’s sunlight personified?”

            Marius – skinny, dark-skinned, and bedecked in muted florals, squirmed under the assault of Courfeyrac’s hug.

            “Cosette is beautiful and wonderful and doing just fine, Courf,” he said, bumping his head against Coufeyrac’s shoulder. “How’s ’Ferre?”

            “I’m fine, Marius, thanks for asking.”

            Marius’s eyes went almost comically wide. “Oh God, sorry ’Ferre,” he stammered, crossing to the sofas, “I didn’t see you there.” As always, his hands flapped while he talked, a slurring, fragmented form of sign language he had absent-mindedly used ever since he had started learning Auslan. While Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras were all in their third year of university, Marius was a first year, and therefore open to a variety of paternalistic teasing from Courfeyrac which was only balanced by the genuinely good advice he was capable of giving.

            Marius flopped down onto the sofa and curled his legs up underneath him. His backpack – bulging with library books – thumped to the floor by Combeferre’s feet.

            “How was the test?” Combeferre asked, not looking up from his laptop as Courfeyrac sat on his other side, kissed his cheek, and watched Marius over his arm on the sofa back.

            “U-uh – very legal?” said Marius. “Lots of law things.”

            “Please feel free not to explain any further,” said Courfeyrac, “I like my brain as it is, not turning to mush. How’d Bossuet go?”

            “Pretty good,” Marius shrugged. “We chatted for a bit afterwards, but she had to go to work, so we didn’t go into much detail.”

            “I’m sure you have plenty of horror stories about it for Bahorel when she eventually has to do the unit,” said Combeferre.

            “When the university reminds her that she’s doing Arts/Law, not just Arts,” Courfeyrac snorted.

            “Oh, Bahorel is well aware of that fact,” Marius put in, “no matter what state of denial she’s in. I think she nearly hit me last week when I mentioned it.”

            “Admittedly,” Combeferre added, “that doesn’t take much.”

            Once, someone on the law lawns had shouted “Think fast!” and thrown a basketball at Bossuet’s bald, beanie-clad head. With her hearing aids off, the result had been a resounding blow to the skull, and Bahorel, grinning, had marched up to the offending student, signed _‘Think fast!’_ and promptly punched the dumbfounded expression off their face.

            “So Cosette’s praying?” Courfeyrac put in, and Marius nodded.

             _“Asr,”_ he said, and laid his head on the sofa back, as if the very thought of Cosette’s piety was enough to leave him struck into lovesick silence. “I should thank Enjolras for changing the meeting times for that, actually…”

            A snort sounded from behind them. “You know exactly what he’ll say to that,” came Grantaire’s voice, before they put on a tone of deep, stern sobriety. “It was a _grave_ oversight that we hadn’t considered the idea beforehand, and I _thank_ Cosette for bringing the matter to _light._ I _assure_ you both that the Queer Officers will do _everything_ in their power to ensure that _no other_ such discriminations are condoned, explicitly _or_ implicitly, by the collec—”

            They were cut off by a cushion to the face, flung by a cackling Courfeyrac. Tossing the weapon back so that Combeferre would catch it, they stepped up behind the couch and leaned over, gathering up all three sofa inhabitants in their arms.

            “Ah, my small sons,” they crooned, “how are we all today?”

            Combeferre’s nose wrinkled. “Why do you smell like…” He sniffed delicately at Grantaire’s collar by his face, and his expression soured a little further. “Smoke and beer?”

            “I was performing my social duties,” Grantaire proclaimed, standing behind them with their nose in the air, “serving and occasionally partaking of the celebratory, post-mid-semester-exams Creative Anachronists’ feast.” They couldn’t hold the stern expression for long, of course, and fell down on the opposite sofa with a grin. “Just don’t tell Joly I was day drinking, they were trying to convince me to go on a water-only detox last week. But then how would I attend literally any SUDS event ever…”

            Grantaire chattered on for a while, recounting their adventures with the Chocolate Society and exclaiming loudly when Cosette joined them, praising her eyes, her skirts, her hands, her voice, her charm, and every other aspect they’d listened to Marius ramble on about, until Courfeyrac threw another pillow at them and they blew Cosette a kiss in deferential apology.

            When Enjolras arrived ten minutes later for the Collective meeting, Grantaire was already gone.

 

* * *

 

            “Good morning, Inspector!”

            “Morning Jean.”

            Javert silently thanked the powers that be for name badges. At least he’d never had to ask for the man’s name. He also tried not to think too hard about how Jean knew his rank: either he was suspiciously familiar with police epaulettes and badges, or he’d looked it up specifically, and Javert _did not_ want to know why. Jean’s eyebrows rose in sympathy.

            “Forgive me for saying, but you look awful.”

            Javert grunted in return. “Late night,” he said. “I’ll probably be a designated detective again soon.”

            “Case going well, then?” Jean was met with a half-hearted glare, and merely tilted his head. “Only teasing, Javert. I know you don’t talk about work.”

            “I’ll um…” Javert was trying to order, but between the sleep deprivation ( _how_ had he not woken up fully on the ride over?) and the disarming power of the lines around Jean’s eyes, his voice was failing him.

            “Espresso as usual, I suppose?” Jean offered. “I’ll give you an extra shot for it, too, free of charge.”

            Javert’s eyes went uncharacteristically wide. “What?”

            “You look like you need it.”

            It was a remark which should have stung, but it was said with such understanding that it simply _didn’t._ Javert was still in a state of shock.

            “You don’t need to do that,” he forced out.

            “Nonsense,” Jean scoffed, ringing up the order. “It would be my pleasure.”

            “It’s fifty cents extra I can’t afford.”

            “Then it’s a good thing it’s free of charge.”

            “I don’t want to be in your debt, sir –”

            “There’s no debt,” Jean laughed.

            “– nor do I wish to be a charity case for your well-talked-of mercy –”

            “It’s nothing of the sort, Inspector, please.”

            “– it’s unfair to favour me over other customers –”

_“Inspector –”_

            Jean’s tone was becoming one of reprimand, but in his panic, Javert steamrolled right over him.

            “The rules of a monetary exchange like this are based on an even give and take,” he babbled. “If the standard price is two dollars fifty for a single-shot espresso, then the extra shot _costs extra,_ and I’m unwilling to pay the extra fifty cents, and you cannot give out free goods indiscriminately, workers or immediate family is one thing but you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you’ll become a hypocrite handing out gift coffee according to nothing more than your own whim, and giving out free things whenever you like it will cost the business greatly in the long run, and I can’t let you –”

_“Javert.”_

            Jean was leaning over the counter now, with his soft hair and bright eyes and kind, patient expression, and _oh_ there it was, that light, tight, stuttering feeling behind his sternum. Javert’s fingers frozen amidst the business cards and the rim of the tip jar on the counter before him.

            “I own the business, remember?” Jean was saying, with a solemn raise of his eyebrows. “I will do with it what I like. And what I would like to do, this morning, is give you an extra shot of coffee free of charge. All right?”

            Javert stared down at him, effectively and efficiently silenced. He blinked.

            “Yes, fine.”

            Jean’s smile could have lit up half the city, and probably not even caused any light pollution as it did. Javert handed over his two dollars fifty, and made his escape to the back wall. He watched as Jean exchanged places with his daughter at the machines, so he could make Javert’s order while another few customers trickled in through the open door, sighing in relief at the shade and cool air. As soon as his coffee was ready, Javert stepped up to the back counter before Jean could even call his name, plucked the cup from his hands, and escaped the shop in favour of his little office across the street, hoping like hell that the upwards twitch of his lips had not been visible.

            The coffee, as always, was exceptional.

 

            Javert had only stumbled upon the term ‘asexual’ a few years earlier, but this – surely _this_ – had to discount his theory?

 

* * *

 

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_January 8_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac, Jessica Enjolras,_ _Jiemba_ _Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Julian Joly, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Marius Pontmercy_

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yo has anyone else noticed mr leblanc’s weird crush on that cop that keeps coming into the shop

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        okay you’re going to have to be MILES more specific than that R

 

 **Samuel** **Feuilly**

                        Wait, who?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        the madeleine’s guy, the cafe owner

                        courf thought of the name don’t blame me

 

**Marius Pontmercy**

                        wait, Cosette’s dad?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        like, his entire head is white

                        HE’S not white. but like

                        literally every hair on his head must be, it’s p impressive

 

_Jessica Enjolras has left the conversation._

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        okay but which cop??

                        there are so many cops in there all the time, it is terrifying

 

 **Samuel** **Feuilly**

                        On the one hand, I agree with you Chetta, because #acab etc. But also. It’s the Madeleine’s guy?? Nothing bad could possibly ever happen around him. Have you SEEN him ever?

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        once i saw him give a free coffee to someone just bc they were ten cents short

 

**Marius Pontmercy**

                        Cosette told me he gives all of the leftover food to homeless people on King Street the next day

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        right, yes, and he could punch out a bear but wouldn’t want to hurt it

                        no one’s contesting leblanc’s a saint

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        You’re really insistent on this “Leblanc” thing aren’t you R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        YOU CAN’T DENY IT’S APPROPRIATE

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        they have a point tbh

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        ok but WHICH COP

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        the tall one

                        wears a big black coat a lot???? i s2g i saw him wearing it in like. november.

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        YOU MEAN INSPECTOR JAVERT, MY PROBLEMATIC INDIGENOUS FAVE

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        nice of you 2 chime in bahorel

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        oh that guy??

                        grey hair, short sideburns, resting bitch face like nothing else?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yep that’s the one

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        oohhhh i know the guy, yeah

 

**Marius Pontmercy**

                        wait, CRUSH??

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        Dude’s a cop, you seriously think leblanc’s gonna have a crush on him

                        Leblanc is like

                        The anti-cop

                        All that is good and generous and kind in the world

                        And that does not go around beating people up at the drop of a hat and upholding the erasure of indigenous cultures

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        okay i’ll grant u that

                        u know what, i’ve decided on a new thesis

 

**Marius Pontmercy**

                        okay this is my girlfriend’s dad you’re talking about I NEED TO LEAVE NOW

 

_Marius Pontmercy has left the conversation._

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        it’s not leblanc that has a crush. okay maybe a small one. it’s the COP that has a crush.

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        …

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        ????????????????????

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        you really think he has…….. the emotional capacity for that……???

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        i’ve literally never seen him smile

                        and i am in that cafe a LOT i see him every other fuckin day

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        no no hear me out u gaiz

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        I am so confused

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        okay but like ?????

                        this cop

                        THIS COP

                        last week i saw him come in around lunchtime, he didn’t order any food, just got a coffee

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        if this is just a way of testing your logic or argumentation skills for philosophy, R…….

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        and he like???? i s2g he practically BLUSHED leblanc was like “oh! inspector how ~nice~~ to see you, we missed you the last few days!” NO IT ISN’T COMBEFERRE HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS SRS BSNS

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        we believe u R

                        >.>

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        and the cop’s like “uuhhHHHHHH I WAS BUSY”

                        like what fuckin bullshit, dude can’t lie to save his life

                        so leblanc’s like “with what” (POOR INNOCENT BOY, I DON’T THINK HE NOTICED)

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        R you do realise you’re talking about marius’ gf’s dad like he’s your son

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        “hhhhhhhhhh” i s2g that’s the exact noise he made HOW DO YOU KNOW HE ISN’T FERRE, TRUTH IS A FALSEHOOD, FACTS ARE SUBJECTIVE, KNOWLEDGE ISN’T REAL, ETC anyway so the cop’s like “iiiiii wwaaaaaaaassss busyonacase i didn’t have time to come in”

                        buuuuullllshit i saw that fucker on king st every goddamn day s2g

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        i can almost guarantee that you did not, R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        u don’t know me chetta u don’t know my life

                        ANYWAY

                        leblanc’s clearly not impressed with this OBVIOUS DISPLAY OF CHICANERY so he’s like “ok w/e dude, what did you want to order” and the cop FLIPS

                        HE’S LIKE

                        “NO IT’S NOT LIKE THAT”

                        “I CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT, IT’S LITERALLY CONFIDENTIAL”

             

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        omg

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        “I WOULD IF I COULD, I REALLY WOULD, I’M NOT TRYING TO DECEIVE YOU”

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Are you kidding me

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        oh my god

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        and this whole time he’s like??????? fidgeting with all the shit on his belt, unbuttoning and buttoning little pocket things, he took out his radio??? and fiddled with it for a bit before putting it back???? jfc this incompetent small child cannot even keep his COOL talking to his DUMB CRUSH

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        NO WAY

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        /YES WAY/

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        how did leblanc respond??

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        meanwhile leblanc’s like “okay….. okay dude… okAY okay it’s okay calm down” and just like, smiling indulgently at this SIDESHOW OF RIDICULOUSNESS as cop bf tries desperately to let him know that he’s not intentionally hiding things from him while /simultaneously also trying to still hide those things from him/ wow such covert very lie

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        I AM JUST COMING TO THIS NOW WTF IS GOING ON???????? I am DELIGHTED

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        eventually cop bf is literally tugging at his sideburns and stammering and leblanc’s like “[SMILES GENTLY] IT’S OKAY, I BELIEVE YOU, /I JUST WORRIED ABOUT YOUR ABSENCE/” which clearly kills the man

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        R how is he a cop boyfriend when they’re clearly not together?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        FIGURE OF SPEECH, SHUT UP

                        LET ME FINISH

 

**Musichette Vaas**

                        “this kills the man” wow R that’s some quality memeage right there

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        so cop bf just. MELTS. at the idea that leblanc was worried about him, omg, it was the funniest shit

                        his eyes are like DINNERPLATE WIDE i s2g he went weak at the knees

                        AND THEN

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        R you’re a miracle worker, thank you for bringing this to our attention also i’m so proud that name has stuck wow

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        AND THEN COP BF IS LIKE shut up courf i’m not done HE’S LIKE

                        “YOU DON’T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT ME” like he’s OFFENDED leblanc’s been fretting

                        and ofc leblanc responds perfectly u wanna know what he said

                        u wanna no

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        YES WE WANT TO KNOW

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND CAFFEINATED GRANTAIRE

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        he just looks all pleasant and says

                        “i couldn’t help it”

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Okay, THIS kills the man

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        cop bf proceeds to scoff, order an espresso, and flee to the back corner

                        i think one of the other workers made the coffee but leblanc LITERALLY took the coffee over to him

                        which they normally don’t do in that place right

                        and cop bf literally apologises he’s like “i’m sorry for overreacting, you just startled me, i’m not used to people expressing concern for my welfare, thank u for ur concern”

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        how did you keep being able to see and hear all of this R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        i choose my cafe seats with much strategy and care, my nerd friend

                        i’m an ARTIST i have to b able 2 see my subjects clearly

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        R most of your cafe sketches involve drawing people with dinosaur heads and hats for cups

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ur point being

                        ANYWAY end of story

                        cop bf drank his coffee and scribbled away in his notebook for a bit, kept glancing over at the counter in like THE LEAST SURREPTITIOUS WAY POSSIBLE what a shit cop

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        R i think you’ll find that inspector john javert has one of the highest arrest rates and one of the LOWEST violent incident report rates in the greater sydney area relative to his duration of service

                        he also has been awarded a bravery medal AND an australian police medal

                        plus like, half a dozen commendations

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        ……………………………. well, someone’s done their research

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        and he’s never had a boyfriend right, because that was the most incompetent flirting i’ve ever seen

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        he’s the only indigenous police officer of higher than sergeant’s rank in the central metropolitan region, of course i’ve done my RESEARCH

                        what the hell do you think of me ferre

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        well now u know he has a dumb crush on mr leblanc the saintly cafe owner, too

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        like i WOULDN’T have done an obsessive amount of research on the dude and been devastated to find out he’s never done a thing to promote indigenous health or culture or to fight against police brutality against indigenous people in custody or rates of indigenous incarceration and arrest, or to listen to community feedback and indigenous needs

                        YES I DO

                        THANK YOU FOR THIS VITAL INFORMATION R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        but yeah, think this kinda shit, small-scale at least, p much every time i’m in there

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        okay so it’s agreed R needs to keep us updated on this important matter, yes

                        and if anyone else of us comes into any news or evidence, it must be shared

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        AGREED

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        agreed

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        SO AGREED

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                         Agreed.

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        i must know all about my problematic indigenous fave

                        like okay i stopped caring about him three years ago, but I MUST KNOW ALL

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        IT IS AGREED            

                        THE CONTRACT HAS BEEN SEALED

                        ALL HAIL THE ‘LEBLANC’S COP BOYFRIEND’ GOSSIP GROUP

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        FUCK YEAH

 

 **Musichetta** **Vaas**

                        ok now everyone fuck off y’all probably have work to do

 

                        […]

 

**Julian Joly**

                        what the HELL just happened here, i am getting the summary from chetta, you all need to calm down

 

_Julian Joly has left the conversation._

 

                        […]

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        just came off shift and wow i am so late to this party but WOW

                        WOW

                        KEEP ME UPDATED YES PLEASE

 

* * *

 

            There was far too much illogical pleasure to be gained from being the first customer at Madeleine’s of a morning. When seven-thirty rolled around and he slid to a halt on his bike, noting the gradual stirrings of activity in the café without any customers, he almost smiled to himself, as he put away bike and helmet in his office, changed his shirt, and then slipped back across the road through the rising, stifling heat and into the shop.

            “Morning, Inspector,” Jean said with a smile from where he was setting up the coffee grinder, and Javert rolled his eyes. He had been through this process before.

            “You know, you can drop the act,” he drawled, counting out the change from his pocket in his palm. Jean glanced quizzically at him.

            “What act?”

            “Oh, the whole –” Javert flapped his left hand between counting coins. “Customer service thing. I’m the only person in here, you don’t need to impress me.”

            “I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jean sighed, then raised his voice over the whirr of the grinder. “Espresso?”

            “Yes please,” Javert nodded, in case he wasn’t heard. “Have here.”

            Jean smiled at him again. “Always a pleasure to have your company,” he said. Again, Javert rolled his eyes.

            “Honestly,” he scoffed, as he handed over the money, “do you really think I don’t recognise it? I wasn’t always a police officer, you know, I had to do my share of waiting tables and serving drinks growing up, I know it’s hell.”

            “I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jean shrugged. At that moment, the grinder stopped, and Jean’s daughter sidled past the curtain to the back room, with a tray of scones between her gloved hands.

            “What are you two arguing about this time?” she asked, with a mischievous smirk. Javert held out a hand to her as if she were a witness.

            “You see?” he demanded. “She understands I don’t need any _customer service_ nonsense.”

 _“Customer service nonsense?”_ Jean echoed, all incredulity, as he readied Javert’s glass.

            “O-oh,” the daughter sang, “I see,” and turned to Javert, as she slid the tray of scones into place under the glass counter. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Javert,” she said, straightening her hijab. “He honestly doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “I am still here, you know,” Jean grumbled – but it was a delighted grumble, comfortable and kind, happily enduring the teasing.

            “I don’t believe you,” Javert grumbled – this one rather more sincerely irritated.

            “Well, you’ll have to,” the daughter sighed, “because it’s the truth. It really _does_ just come naturally to him.”

            “What,” Javert scoffed, “all those _smiles_ and _Good morning_ s? I refuse to believe they’re all _absolutely genuine,_ not with every single customer who comes through,”

            Jean opened his mouth, looking moderately offended. “Javert,” he chided, “I respect all of my customers!”

            Javert’s shoulders rose, along with his hands and the pitch of his voice as he uttered a sound as nonsensical as the man before him.

            “I’m afraid so, Inspector,” the daughter said, all mock-solemn; and then she grinned, kissed her father on the cheek, and disappeared back through the curtain.

            Javert’s mouth had descended and retracted into a screwed-up moue of disappointment.

            “I cannot _believe_ you,” he muttered; but Jean only smiled mildly at him, and started to warm the milk.

            “Why don’t you have a seat, Javert,” he said, “you’ll be more comfortable.”

            Javert threw his hands in the air, and complied.

 

* * *

 

            His first day in plain clothes was – as it had always been in the past – an awkward affair. His jeans were slimmer than his work trousers, his shirt just a little tighter, and somehow, despite his comfort in his short-sleeved work shirt, the equivalent in a lightly-patterned grey seemed all but revealing. Perhaps it was his lack of a tie. He got his usual espresso in the morning, suffering only through a pleasant “I suppose congratulations are in order, Detective Inspector?” from Jean, which he managed to spectacularly mess up by informing the man that the designation of detective was not, strictly-speaking, a promotion, and was in fact one he had held multiple times in the past.

            Jean refused to look displeased at the news.

            By lunchtime a week later, however, Javert was wearing the same shirt as he had the previous three days, and a scowl worthy of the QVB statue. He bypassed the counter completely when he entered Madeleine’s at 12:32 on the dot, sweating from the blazing soup of the outside air, and instead marched straight over to the back corner table, strewing a laptop and a stack of papers across it. His linen suit jacket was tossed over the back of a chair, and he dropped into the seat with a quiet huff and a press of his face into his hands.

            Jean placated Cosette’s inquiring looks with a hand to her shoulder, and slipped out from behind the counter.

            “Detective Inspector?”

            He jumped, and looked up from his palms. The bags under his eyes were deeper than ever, and the lines around his mouth more downturned and pronounced.

            “Apologies,” he muttered, “I should have ordered first…”

            “No worries,” Jean smiled. “Espresso?”

            “Macchiato,” Javert corrected. “Strong. One sugar.”

            Jean’s brow creased with worry. “Are you all right?”

            “It’s the daughter,” Javert muttered to himself, flipping open his laptop and one of the files before it. “If the daughter would only talk…”

            Jean’s frown grew deeper, and he craned his neck a little to see into Javert’s file. There was a photo on the top that chilled him to the bone.

            “The Thénardier daughter?”

            Javert snapped the file shut and shot a look up at him like stone.

            “That’s none of your concern.”

            “Éponine Thénardier?”

            Javert’s voice became a growl.“That is a police matter, it’s _none_ of your concern!”

            Jean’s hands rose, palms out, placating. “All right,” he soothed. “All right. I didn’t mean to overstep.”

            Javert fished three dollars out of his pocket.

            “Strong macchiato, one sugar,” he repeated, and turned unequivocally to his computer. Jean let him be.

 

            “Cosette?”

            “Trouble in paradise?” she grinned, and Jean felt a wash of fond regret at how perceptive she was. He joined her behind the counter, and started cleaning off steam wands and filter baskets, readying Javert’s cup.

            “You know Éponine Thénardier, don’t you?” he said, under his breath. She shot a dark look at him.

            “I’m _not_ helping him arrest her,” she said, very firmly. Jean shook his head.

            “I don’t think he wants to,” he said. “I think he just wants to talk to her, see if she knows anything about her parents’ doings.”

            “You know she’s not in contact with them, dad,” Cosette reminded him. “If she knew anything, don’t you think she’d have turned them in by now?”

            Jean’s eyes were on Javert, hunched over his table and running his fingers repeatedly through his neat sideburns.

            “I’m not so sure about that,” he murmured. “And besides, she might know things she doesn’t know could help. I’m certain Javert could orchestrate a deal with her, grant her some kind of immunity if she agreed to…”

            He trailed off at his daughter’s snort of amusement.

            “Sorry dad,” she said, “but you have too much faith sometimes. Between what Ponine’s said, Gav, Marius… heck, he tried to arrest Enjolras for _getting his own arm broken_ at that rally last year! I really don’t think he’d be happy with a deal like that.”

            “If it helped him catch the Minette gang?” Jean countered.

            “I know you’ve taken a shine to him, dad,” Cosette sighed, “but I really don’t think so. Oh!” She eyed her father’s hands. “Sugar?”

            “Strong macchiato, one sugar,” Jean replied.

            “Well, that’s out of character for him…”

            Jean smiled at that.

            “You see?” he said. “He’ll surprise you sometimes.”

            Cosette looked unconvinced, her eyes rolling just a little and her mouth screwed up in delicate distaste.

            “Will you at least mention it to Éponine?” Jean implored as he drew the coffee. Cosette watched the dark, steaming shots grow.

            “I’ll mention it,” she said. “But I make no promises.”

            Jean beamed.

 

            Javert began to pack up precisely fifty-five minutes after he’d arrived. As he stood and gulped back the last, stone-cold dregs of his coffee, Jean approached to clear up, and Javert’s fingers toyed with the dog-eared pages of the files under his arm. An increasingly familiar flutter behind his sternum made him straighten his spine as Jean wiped down the table.

            “I apologise,” he said, stiffly. Jean paused in his work to look up at him. “For snapping at you earlier.”

            “It’s police business,” Jean conceded. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

            “Yes, well.” Javert seemed incapable of denying the fact. However: “I still shouldn’t have snapped. I was rude. I apologise.”

            In his hands, the files had been thoroughly rifled through over the course of just that little speech. Jean stood up straight again.

            “Will I see you tomorrow, Detective Inspector?” he asked. Javert cleared his throat.

            “Yes, probably,” he said, determinedly looking at a space somewhere just above Jean’s eyes. “Good afternoon.”

            And then he was gone, speeding out the door with his files and laptop clutched tightly under one arm and his jacket clenched in his fist. Jean turned to Cosette, who gave him an indulgent thumbs-up from behind the counter.

 

* * *

 

            Enjolras neither read nor wrote poetry, but when Jehan suggested a queer open mic slam night to celebrate the start of semester, he was all in favour. The only university venues available to them were too public, not to mention the fact that Grantaire and Courfeyrac both refused to go to Hermann’s Bar on principle. Why Grantaire was involved in the discussion was beyond Enjolras’ comprehension, but they were very insistent about wanting to be involved. In the end, Cosette had suggested her father’s shop, and Jehan had violently agreed, and Combeferre had nodded thoughtfully along to Courfeyrac’s enthusiastic seconding of the motion, and it had been decided that the queer officers would investigate the space and talk to Jean Fauchelevent on Wednesday evening after Combeferre got out of his lab.

            Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Cosette, Jehan, and Feuilly were there for organisational reasons; Grantaire was there because they were recovering from a boxing lesson and what smelled like a hangover.

            “There’s definitely the space,” Cosette was saying, marking out lines with her finger on the mockup of the shop which Jehan had drawn in Grantaire’s sketchbook – “and we can bring extra chairs in, pull the beanbags down from upstairs, stuff like that. Sofa cushions as a last resort, though I doubt we’ll get _that_ many people the first time round.”

            “And you’re sure your father will be okay with it?” Enjolras asked; Cosette’s nodding reply was interrupted by Grantaire.

            “Jesus,” they scoffed from where they lounged impossibly in their wooden chair, “is that even a question? Saint Leblanc’s gonna _die_ when you ask him, he won’t even ask you to pay him.”

            Enjolras bristled, but did not snap. “That seems unfair,” he said; “but we can at least make up for the time by encouraging audience members to buy drinks? Make the event alcohol-free but with coffee, tea, hot chocolates – maybe soft drinks?”

            Cosette sighed, smiling. “Dad’ll offer a discount,” she said. “Just warning you. One-dollar coffee or something ridiculous like that. If you’re thinking about trying to reimburse him, don’t count on drink sales.”

            Enjolras looked perturbed.

            “He’s very generous,” Combeferre admitted. “Trust me, there’s no catch.”

            “Well then, all that’s left is negotiating a date and time,” Enjolras shrugged. “Duties until then?”

            “We’ll need a Facebook event,” said Feuilly, followed closely by the rattle of Combeferre’s keyboard as he typed up the list. “Organise soft drinks if we want them, maybe a pizza order?”

            “Might want to leave the actual order until the night, so we can tailor it to attendees,” Courfeyrac chimed in. Combeferre bumped him with a fond elbow as he typed, causing Courfeyrac to beam.

            “What about the date though?” said Cosette. “We want to give people enough time to put a piece together in advance.”

            “And time for advertisement,” Feuilly went on, “though it is meant to be for the start of semester. We can post on Facebook and mention it at the O-Week stall. Do we want to do paper posters?”

            “Ooh, we could do some art promotion!” Cosette chimed. “Hang a little gallery on the wall, use some in the posters?”

            “We could use the chalkboard wall for audience participation,” Jehan added.

            “Grantaire?” Enjolras shot across the table. “You did the art for the tea party event last semester, do you want to help out with this one too?”

            From behind their triple-shot latte and opulent sprawl, Grantaire grinned, fond eyes fixed on Enjolras across the lid of Combeferre’s laptop.

            “You know I’d do anything for you,” they crooned. Combeferre’s shoulders went tense, and Enjolras’ mouth thinned.

            “And _you_ know how uncomfortable it makes me when you talk like that,” he said; and left it at that. “Will you do the art?”

            Grantaire’s lopsided smile did not fade at the rebuke. “Of course, oh Apollonic one,” they sing-songed, and sipped their coffee. “Anything specific you had in mind?”

            “I’ll give you free reign on the design,” Enjolras shrugged, and watched Combeferre type up the agreement. “Just make it appropriate to the event. By the way, did you get in touch with LitSoc about their event last semester, like we agreed?”

            Grantaire’s expression – formerly a carefully cultivated blend of disinterest and seduction – froze, and then fell, in horror.

            “Aw, _shit.”_

            Enjolras restrained a sigh.

            “Jesus fuck, I’m sorry E –”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Enjolras muttered, “it wasn’t time-sensitive. Cosette, you’re a member could you –”

            “No – no, I can do it!” Grantaire protested, sitting up now and setting down their coffee so hard it spilled onto the saucer. “I just forgot, I’ll remember now, it’s fine.”

            “Grantaire,” Enjolras sighed, “every single time you’ve been asked to do something for this society other than show up, you have failed. Even then you only do it when there’s food involved, and you’re usually drunk or hungover. Stop pretending you care just so you can win my non-existent romantic favour.”

            Grantaire’s laughter was frantic and snorting, overriding their words. “That’s not what it’s about!” they said, throwing up an indolent hand. “I can do it, fucking hell, you don’t have to get Cosette to –”

            “R, just leave it,” Feuilly murmured at their side, one hand rising to restrain their flailing limb.

            “I know you’re a good friend to the people at this table,” Enjolras went on, “but you’re utterly incapable. This isn’t a social meeting, and if you’re only going to be a hindrance, I’m gonna have to ask you to go somewhere else.”

            Grantaire’s mouth eased shut, and their shoulders slouched unpleasantly.

            “I can do it,” they said again, rather more solemnly. “You’ll see.”

            With that, they snatched up their coffee and shifted one foot to their seat, hiding behind their upraised knee and the rim of their mug. After a long moment of mortified silence and furtive glances from the others, Enjolras sighed patiently.

            “Anything else need actioning?”

            Combeferre cleared his throat and looked back at his laptop as Courfeyrac inched closer to his side.

            “Cosette will contact the LitSoc exec then…”

            Eventually, Grantaire buried their nose in their phone, an action list was written and posted on the queer collective Facebook page, and Éponine arrived, slipping away with Cosette while the latter muttered something about finding her father. One by one, the rest of the group hurried off, to home or the library or one pub or another, until only Enjolras and Grantaire were left, steadily ignoring each other, the one typing steadily and the other drawing whorled snail shells on their arm. They did not look up when Enjolras snapped shut his laptop, hefted it into a bag, and stood, hesitating at the edge of the table.

            “Will you be able to get home all right?” he asked, sounding almost as if he were asking the question by rote. Grantaire snorted with laughter.

            “Are you offering to escort me home from prom?”

            Enjolras’ mouth pursed.

            “I’m only concerned,” they bit out, “about your welfare travelling so far at this time of night.”

            “Believe it or not, honey,” Grantaire drawled, finally looking up, “I _am_ a grown-up. Fuck’s sake, I can get home by myself.”

            It was lilting, charming, inoffensive vulgarity, and Enjolras would have none of it.

            “Why is it,” he said, “that everything good about you goes out the window when I’m around?”

            Grantaire’s smirk – chastened, taken aback – gradually slid away. They said nothing, and in the end, Enjolras only sighed at them once more, and left the shop.

            It wasn’t until Jean started gently telling the last customers that he was closing soon that Grantaire chugged the last of their stone-cold coffee, gathered up their meagre things, and followed the rest of their friends out the door.

 

* * *

 

            When Javert stamped down the station stairs on Friday evening – t-shirt-clad and with his bike held aloft on one shoulder – there was a note waiting for him with the receptionist.

            “From Madeleine,” she said. “Brought it over a few hours ago, said to give it to you when you left.”

            Javert lowered his bike to the floor, frowning at the little coffee-stained piece of folded paper as he took it. With a shuddering breath, he slipped it open with his thumb, and read.

 

_Detective Inspector Javert,_

_Please come over to the shop when you have finished your shift. I have something which may further your investigations into the Minette gang, but would prefer it to be dealt with outside of official police business._

_Yours,_

_Jean Fauchelevent_

 

            Javert’s heart seemed to skip a beat. (Fauchelevent! His name was Fauchelevent!) What could Jean have to help him – and why outside of police time? He glanced around him momentarily, then out through the front window at the shop across the road. It was darker than it was during opening hours, despite it only being six o’clock, but there was still one light on, throwing into shadow a small group of people seated in the corner. Javert set his jaw, and walked his bike outside, across the street, and up to the closed front door of Madeleine’s, the heat and humidity of the day still lingering in the evening light.

            His knock was firm and brief, and half a lie, for it did nothing to show the terror which trembled in his breast. Jean was always polite, but this seemed distant, even for him.

            The door was opened by his daughter, who smiled thinly and stood back to let him in.

            “Er,” Javert stammered – “my bike –”

            “Bring it in, Inspector,” came Jean’s voice from the corner. “We haven’t mopped up just yet.”

            Awkwardly, stiltedly, Javert wheeled his bike into the café, hung the helmet from the handlebar, and toed down the kickstand to rest it by the door. Fauchelevent’s daughter had already overtaken him, and he followed her towards the group in the corner as Jean stood up from the clutter of chairs and approached Javert with open palms.

            “I apologise,” he murmured, “for having to be so secretive about this,” and even in his quiet, careful voice, Javert could hear that tone of kind patience which had stirred his heart since his first espresso. But there was a subdued terror in Jean’s eyes which quickly stamped out the uplifting feeling, replacing it with a similar fear. Javert swallowed.

            “What is it, Jean?”

            Jean’s expression was solemn. He looked like he was smiling sadly, but he wasn’t smiling.

            “You’ve met my daughter,” he said, walking them both back towards the table. Javert watched as a few heads turned to him (from a group of eight – all young – crowded around a central figure hidden to him, dressed like university students, probably leftist, queer-identifying, judging by the variety of piercings, tattoos, and hair styles and colours). Their eyes were all suspicious of him, but he was used to that. “You don’t know my daughter’s name, however,” Jean was saying, and, with that same, sad expression, he drew the young woman close under his arm. “Javert, meet Cosette.”

            With a wrench, everything fell into the place. It was as if the world, before, had been out of sync, the audio running just behind the video, or vice versa, until now, with those few words, Jean had knocked them back together, the difference between falsity and truth, between dreaming and waking. Javert felt his expression go slack, his mouth inching open and his eyes falling wide in horrific realisation.

            “Cosette, as you probably remember,” Jean went on, with that awful, regretful tone, “lived with the Thénardiers for some years when she was younger, before I adopted her. She got back in touch with her old step-sister at university. With her help, I’ve brought Éponine here. She’s willing to talk to you, under the condition that you not prosecute her alongside her parents for crimes she had no part in. Her friends will bear witness to proceedings here, to keep her safe.”

            At the table, the figure the others had been huddled around had stood up, and Javert, at the back of his mind, recognised Éponine Thénardier: a little older than when last they’d met, but with the same fierce, defiant eye and clenched jaw that he remembered. Now, however, he had eyes only for –

_“Valjean.”_

            Jean’s eyes closed, and he pressed his lips together, as Cosette slipped from his grasp to join her friends.

            “That’s not my name anymore, Detective Inspector,” he murmured.

            Javert felt himself tremble.

_“You –”_

            “Please, Javert, this isn’t the time or the place –”

            “You _lied_ to me.”

            The trembling had reached his voice. He didn’t care. Jean’s eyes were sad and fixed on his, and he wanted to beat every scrap of sympathy out of them, wanted to tear himself to pieces so he could find every part that Jean had touched and exorcise them from his being. His hands were fists at his sides.

            “I didn’t lie,” Jean was saying, calm, soft, and slow, as if he were addressing a spooked animal. “I changed my name – _legally_ – I thought you might recognise me –”

            “How could I?” Javert snapped “How could I recognise the _wretch_ that you are, when you buried it in all – all _this?”_ The last word was hissed, and accompanied by a tight gesture with one hand meant to encompass Jean’s vests, his smile, his coffee, his shop, and everything that he had fooled Javert into thinking he was. “Oh, it was very well done, _Valjean,_ but don’t you think – don’t think for one _second_ that I didn’t –”

            This man – this _con_ – this thief, brawler, parole-breaker, liar, this being who had spent his life flinging the rules Javert lived by back in his face – this man whom Javert had been so taken in by that he’d almost grown to –

            “I suspected, oh, I did, I knew you looked familiar, but never did I, for a moment, think that you – a man like _you_ – could sink so low as to believe in this _façade_ –”

            There were tears in Jean’s – _Valjean’s_ – eyes, as he held out his hands, wide, palms up, an imitation of some horrid embrace. “Inspector, please,” he whispered up at him – “not here.”

 _“Not here?”_ Javert echoed, in a vicious snarl. “Speak up when you’re talking to an officer, _not here?_ Where else then? In prison, where you belong? In your filthy rooms upstairs, in the station, outside? _Where else,_ Valjean?”

            “Dad,” Cosette was saying, “why is he calling you that…?”

            Valjean turned his head, almost looking back at her. “I’m sorry, Cosette.”

            “Don’t,” Javert laughed, and the lines around his mouth were as cruel as his grinning teeth. “Don’t pretend, don’t you hide any longer – why don’t you tell her, why don’t you tell them all what you _really_ are?!”

_“No.”_

            All of a sudden, Valjean’s voice was firm, a commanding, final bark which pushed Javert quite literally onto the back foot: it was a voice he would have expected of a superior officer, a magistrate, perhaps, but never of the beast he’d known in the prison, nor the gentle business owner of Australia Street. Javert was effectively, momentarily, silenced, and Valjean took his chance.

            “I did not bring you here,” he said, “to denounce me in front of my family. I did not bring you here for any kind of revelation. I brought you here –” he took a breath – “to help bring the Minette gang to justice. Éponine is here, and willing to talk. You implied that with her you might be able to find the Thénardiers –”

            “Oh yes, I implied that,” Javert said with a predatory grin. “Investigating official police matters by myself when you should not have been listening, you lying, eavesdropping, good-for-nothing –”

_“Detective Inspector Javert.”_

            Valjean’s tone, again, silenced him through sheer force.

            “Éponine will not stay here forever,” Valjean informed him. “I suggest you take this opportunity.” His expression softened by an increment: a mere relaxation of his mouth and jaw, a slight lack of tension around his eyes that was there only for the space between two blinks. He went on: “I’ll still be here tomorrow morning if you want to arrest me.”

            “Arrest you?” Cosette echoed, a fearful chime to her voice. She stepped back to her father’s side. “What are you talking about, why would Javert want to –” But then she caught sight of Javert’s face, and her eyes went wide, a gasp escaping before she could clap her hand to her mouth. A little whisper escaped – “Oh no –” and she clutched her father’s arm.

            Javert was aware that he was expected to speak. Valjean still stood before him.

            “You will not be present for the interview,” he said. Valjean nodded in assent, and Javert looked up at the little crowd around Éponine Thénardier. “Three witnesses only.” A number of mouths opened, but Javert raised his voice over the protestations before they had barely begun. “You will not be permitted to speak unless directly addressed by either myself or Miss Thénardier. Any evidence I perceive as having been skewed by your influence on Miss Thénardier will be dismissed.” The protests had died down completely. “I will take brief, handwritten notes, but no video or audio recordings will be taken by myself _or anyone else present._ If I find out that a recording has been made, the individuals involved will be charged with witness intimidation. I will record the names and addresses of the three who accompany Miss Thénardier. Everyone else will leave the room for the full duration of the interview. _No exceptions.”_

            He swept the little group with his eye, and took in their reactions, as Cosette left her father’s side and hurried back to the group. An Indian boy in ratty overalls with floral embroidery was frantically signing something to Éponine with his thin hands, while the white one – shorts and thongs, and effortlessly-styled hair – exchanged dark looks with the Chinese boy Javert recognised from every rally he’d had to guard at the university. There was an Indigenous woman, angry-looking, whispering in the ear of a Jewish boy in a worn old jacket. Cosette and the last of them – a Greek kid, slouched by the wall in a beanie – were comforting Éponine.

            “Who’s staying?” Javert demanded, and they all looked to him for a moment before descending into more signed and whispered conversations.

            “E, for fuck’s sake, you’ll just piss him off –”

_‘I want M to stay, he knows more than the eagle.’_

_‘Oh, EP, you flatter me!’_

            “I can look after Feuilly.”

            “Do I _need_ looking after?”

_‘Okay, so it’s me, R, M, is that –’_

            Javert cleared his throat as the youths chattered, and looked down at Valjean, still standing before him and watching his daughter with creases between his brows. There was a feeling behind Javert’s chest – where that curious flutter once had been – and it was a hot, roiling, striking sensation. It was the absolute victory of having found out the truth, the swelling, triumphal glow of having apprehended a criminal; the pride of having done his job – of having been _right_ – that encompassed much more than himself, and made _Inspector Javert_ inconsequential and irreproachable under the mantle of justice, the law, the established order, and all the stars.

            It was a feeling, unusually, like being stabbed.

            “It’s time for you to leave,” Javert growled – _“Valjean.”_

            Valjean’s eyes didn’t meet his as he retorted: “Please don’t use that name in front of my daughter.”

            “She’ll have to learn it sooner or later,” Javert sneered. “She’ll have to know who to ask for during visiting hours.”

            Valjean glared up at him with disgust in his snarling mouth and nose. _Like a dog,_ Javert thought, pleased with the analogy.

            “You’re a cruel man,” Valjean insisted. “I don’t know how I ever thought –”

            He cut himself off with a scoff, but Javert only smiled at him, rough and wide, showing his teeth.

            “Thought what?” he snapped. _“Thought what,_ Valjean? That I wouldn’t expose you for what you are, in the end, that I wouldn’t discover –”

            “We’ve decided,” came Cosette’s voice, cutting through their hissing exchange. “Me, Marius, and R will stay. Do you know Auslan?”

            Javert bristled.

            “Passably.”

            “Marius will be able to translate if needed.”

            Javert nodded his assent.

            “Everyone else,” he ordered – _“out.”_

            There was a collective huffing of breaths and shuffling of feet. Valjean sighed at his side.

            “Come on everyone,” he said kindly. “There’s some food in the fridge upstairs, I’ll make us all tea…”

            Valjean led the way, showing the rest of the youths into the kitchen at the back, until the sound of footsteps on stairs faded away. Javert, on heavy feet, went back to his bike, and drew a notebook and pen from the saddlebag, before approaching the corner table and sitting across from Éponine. He cleared his throat, settled into his chair, and raised his hands.

 _‘I haven’t had much practise,’_ he signed, haltingly. ‘ _Sorry.’_

            Éponine smirked at him.

_‘Maybe you should talk to scum like me more often.’_

            Javert felt his lip curl, but he ignored the comment, and placed the notebook on the table, flipping it to a blank page. He was interrupted by Éponine’s angry hands.

 _‘A and G are_ not _to be involved in this.’_

            Javert frowned. ‘ _Who?’_

            Éponine rolled her eyes at him, and spelled out the names. ‘ _A-Z-E-L-M-A and G-A-V-R-O-C-H-E.’_

            Nodding, Javert picked up his pen and hunched over his notebook. “Names, addresses, and preferred pronouns of the witnesses,” he said, pen poised. He scribbled his way through the answers.

 

_Cosette Fauchelevent, Australia Street, Newtown, 2042, she_

_Robin Grantaire, 37 Coonara Avenue, West Pennant Hills, 2125, they_

_Marius Pontmercy, STUCCO 4/197-207 Wilson Street, Newtown, 2042, he_

 

            He could see that it would be futile to try to sign as well as keep his hands on his notebook, so he dropped his pen, and resolved to take as few notes as possible. He raised his hands again, thought for a moment, and continued.

_‘What can you tell me about your parents’ current whereabouts?’_

 

            Two hours later, Éponine was ushered out of the shop by the rest of the kids, the whole gaggle of them advancing amidst a storm of flapping hands and tongues. Javert bristled; no doubt they were sharing all the information that had just been discussed. Still, the Fauchelevent girl, Grantaire, and Pontmercy had all kept quiet unless they were needed to translate or provide a detail asked for by Éponine, and he was satisfied that, with the information he now had, he was much closer to finally apprehending the Minette gang. Valjean was the last to descend the stairs, as Javert stuffed his notebook back into his bag and buckled it up, straightening and tipping up the bike kickstand with his toe. With his palms on the handlebars, he allowed Valjean to catch his eye.

            “Detective Inspector –” he began, but Javert overrode him.

            “There’s no need,” he snapped. “We have nothing more to discuss.”

            There was relief in the slump of Valjean’s shoulders and the sighing of his breath.

            “You’re not going to arrest me?” he asked, with a weak attempt at a laugh.

            “On what charges?” Javert countered. “But never fear, _Valjean_ –” He relished the flinch that crossed Jean’s features. “I will be watching, and I will be waiting, and _when_ you slip up, believe me, I will be there.”

            Valjean’s mouth was a sad, pained imitation of the gentle smile Javert was used to. He tried not to think about it.

            “Good night, Detective Inspector Javert.”

            Javert said nothing, merely wrenched open the door and manoeuvred his bike outside. Within moments, he was on the road, lurching into the seat and determinedly pedalling as fast as he could towards Parramatta Road, and away from Valjean, Fauchelevent, and Madeleine’s, once and for all.

 

            Javert biked to and from work as he had almost every day for five years since being transferred to Newtown. He did not enter Madeleine’s, and he did not think about Valjean, and he buried himself in the Minette case and ignored all confused glances at the Gloria Jeans cups in his hands.

            Across the road, Jean’s tension slowly drained away as, day by day, no arrest warrant came. Mingled with his regret was a bittersweet strain of relief at not having to see Javert anymore, even if it had been weeks since he had last been afraid of him. It seemed that, now, he would at least be left in peace.

 

* * *

 

            “Dad?”

            It was a week since Javert had talked to Éponine. Things had been as they always were in the Fauchelevent household above the shop, if a little tense, and a little quiet. Cosette stood in the doorway to her father’s bedroom, sighing to herself, as usual, about how small it was, in loose pyjamas and with her dark hair braided loose and long down her back. She held a steaming mug of tea in each hand: white with three sugars for herself, and black with none for her father. Jean was balancing accounts from the previous month when he looked up at her, and smiled.

            “What is it, sweetheart?”

            Cosette ducked her head. Her father had always been kind to her, always loving and accepting and fond, and had called her the sweetest of names even when she’d begun to surpass him in height and talked about finally changing her first name by law. He was willing to do anything for her, with one exception: he never talked about his past.

            She didn’t want to confront him with this; but it was inevitable, now. It was important. She pressed her lips together, brows creased down in worry.

            “I brought you tea,” she said, holding out one of the rainbow-patterned mugs, and Jean smiled, and reached out to take it.

            “Have I done something specific to warrant this,” he asked, as if the gesture were one of supreme generosity, “or are you just being kind?” He obviously expected her to roll her eyes – gifts of tea were not unusual in their household – but at her hesitation, the smile in his eyes began to fade, that on his mouth drooping down. His brow twitched in a frown. “What is it?” he asked.

            “I wanted to talk to you about something important,” said Cosette, swaying in the doorway. “Can I come in?”

            Explicit permission: it had always been of vital importance in their household, since Cosette was seven years old and had had to painstakingly explain to Jean why she didn’t like people holding her wrist. At that moment, it seemed more consequential than ever.

            “Yes, come in,” Jean said hoarsely, standing as if to pull out a chair or direct her to a seat when there was, in fact, nothing for him to do but remain in place as Cosette crossed the room to settle cross-legged on his bed. He sat back down in his chair, swivelling it around to face his daughter. Before he could ask what it was, Cosette straightened her bony shoulders, lifted her chin, and asked:

            “Why did Javert call you that name?” The concern around her eyes and in her voice was almost palpable. “And why isn’t he coming to the shop anymore? I thought he liked you.”

            At the first mention of Javert, Jean had looked back to the papers and keyboard on the desk before him, but now he set down his tea and shut his eyes, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose.

            “Cosette…”

            She leaned over her legs, trying to get closer. Her room was carpeted and plush, with a double bed and patterned, cosy sheets; she had once convinced Jean to buy a small rug for beside the bed, but that was all the comfort he had.

            “Dad,” she implored, “I’m nineteen. I’m worried about you. Please, at least tell me what you can so I can look after you.”

            “You shouldn’t be looking after me!” Jean laughed, a little wetly, looking up at her. _“I’m_ the parent here, Cosette, _I_ should be looking after _you.”_

            Cosette smiled at having moved him to even this sad mirth. Her long, delicate hands were firm around the mug resting on her ankles.

            “You do,” she said, with a tiny smile. “Better than anyone else ever could. I think I’m allowed to return the favour.”

            Jean winced, and rolled his chair closer, as he fumbled out to grip at her hands with both of his broad palms.

            “Please, Cosette,” he said softly, “you know I don’t like to talk about my past.”

            “Dad, it’s _hurting_ you,” Cosette insisted. “I hate seeing you hurt. You don’t need to tell me any details you don’t want to, and whatever happened, I’ll still love you. But I can’t keep worrying myself silly without knowing if there’s a way I can help you.”

            Jean’s blunt fingers tightened on hers very briefly.

            “You’ll hate me,” he whispered.

            “I could never hate you,” she sighed in return. “Please – you can’t just hold everything in forever.”

            Jean stared at her, and at their hands suspended and gripped together between them; then he nodded, and released Cosette’s hand as he reached for his mug of tea. Cosette took a deep breath.

            “How long has Javert known you?”

            Jean blew on his tea, and took a sip.

            “A very long time,” he eventually said, “but we haven’t seen each other for years. He didn’t recognise me at first, when he met me here.”

            “Not until he knew about me,” Cosette carefully finished the thought for him. Then, when he didn’t go on: “Did he know my mother?”

            “Yes.”

            Cosette felt trapped between an awful kind of curiosity, all-consuming concern, and the terror of how much pain her father would have to go through before even this small talk was over. She schooled her face, and arranged straightforward words.

            “How did he know her?”

            Jean was watching his tea. He didn’t seem able to bring himself to watch Cosette’s face.

            “He arrested her.” Cosette seemed about to speak, but he took a breath, and spoke again: “He arrested _me.”_

            Cosette flinched, and her breath caught.

 _“Oh,”_ she said. “I knew you’d been in prison, but – oh.”

            Jean was shaking his head.

            “No, that wasn’t – you don’t understand,” he whispered, “you can’t, it’s so long –”

            “Dad,” Cosette smiled, leaning closer, “I’ll never understand a thing if you don’t try to explain it to me.”

            Finally, Jean looked at her directly, and though there was worry and fear in his face, and the creases at the edges of his eyes, there was also wonder, too, in their wide, dark gaze, and disbelief as of a miracle in the way his mouth fell open.

            “Oh, _Cosette…”_ he sighed; and she picked up her tea, untangled her legs, and stepped up to catch him as he set down his own mug, wrapping his arms instead around her back. She was smiling as she bent down to hold him: a little sadly, on his shoulder, where he couldn’t see it.

            “It’s all right, dad,” she hushed. “I love you. I’ll still love you, no matter what Javert does or thinks. You’re the best father a girl could want.” She gave a little laugh, and added: _“Especially_ a trans one.”

            Jean chuckled in return, and pulled away, brushing her lush hair from her face with one rough hand. God, how he loved her.

            “My girl,” he whispered, “my darling girl… You’re growing up.”

            Cosette pouted at that.

            “Shocking,” she said dryly, “I know.”

            Jean laughed again at that, and she smiled at the response. It ended quickly though – they were not finished – and as Cosette retreated back to the bed, pressing her hand to his, Jean sighed at her, and said:

            “How odd, that you manage to keep teaching me things even at my age.”

            “The wisdom of the young,” she quipped. “Or possibly the Koreans.” As she sat, Jean released her hand, and scooted his chair a little closer. It was almost like she was eight again, and sitting on her bed in their big old house in Wahroonga, while he read _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ to her for the umpteenth time.

            “Do you want me to just keep asking questions,” she said, “and you can answer them as much as possible? You can always opt out.”

            Jean nodded, and though he was solemn, it was not a needless, nor an unusual, solemnity. When Cosette spoke again, her voice was as soft, kind, and firm as before.

            “When did you first meet Javert?”

            Jean’s eyebrows rose and fell, and he raised a hand to his mouth, stroking through his thick, white beard in thought. That was a hard question.

            “I was… in my late twenties?” he said. “I was…” He cleared his throat. Took a deep breath. “Well, you know I went to prison. When I was twenty-one, I tried to steal some bread, to feed my sister and her children. We were starving, we had no money, no work…”

            Cosette’s mouth was thin line of distress. Distance was what was needed, or she would spook her father; but she also wanted desperately to comfort him. She watched with satisfaction as Jean picked up his tea and took a sip, relaxing – incrementally, but visibly – at the warmth of the drink.

            “I broke into a shop at night,” he went on after he’d swallowed, “but the police caught me. I was sentenced to five years.”

            With her hands so tightly held around her mug, Cosette could not drink. Jean shook his head: at himself, at his past, but never at her.

            “I was so angry back then,” he whispered. “So angry at the world for what it had done to us. To me, to my family, I was…” He licked his lips, and swallowed. “Well. My sentence was increased bit by bit, for… bad behaviour. Escape attempts. Eventually, I served nineteen years.”

            A very small gasp left Cosette’s mouth, and she immediately brought a hand up to stifle it. Jean’s eyes jumped to her; but it wasn’t fear or shame that had prompted the sound, he could see that. Only horror, shock, and pain at his suffering, were in her kind eyes. Jean felt his heart melt a little. With the preamble done, he could finally answer Cosette’s question.

            “Javert – you can probably guess – he was a police officer,” he said. “He worked in the prison where I was held for a couple of years. They needed extra security for a while. He…”

            Cosette was shaking her head. A very small “Oh no,” left her throat, and Jean smiled at her – thinly, but a reassurance nonetheless.

            “He was never cruel,” he assured her. “Never overstepped his boundaries, never favoured or discriminated. But he used exactly the amount of force he was told to use. And he saw me – well, he saw me at my very worst.”

            Cosette felt no need to watch him linger over such painful details any longer.

            “When you left,” she said, voice cracking a little, “is that when you met my mother?”

            A proper smile reached Jean’s face at that.

            “Yes,” he said. “But before that, there was – you need to know, I broke parole. I tried to steal from a rabbi, but he showed me mercy and… helped me. He gave me money, helped me start a business.” He laughed once to himself. “I sourced and roasted fair trade coffee beans. We called the business ‘Madeleine’s’.”

            She couldn’t help it; the irony was too much. Cosette wedged her tea between her ankles, buried her face in her hands, and shook her head and laughed. As always, her levity made Jean smile, and even if both of them were a little fragile, it was still delightful.

            “You unimaginative old dork,” Cosette groaned. “Of course you _re-used the name.”_

            Jean shrugged. “What can I say?” he said. “I got attached to it.” He sobered quickly, and went on. “Your mother worked for me. Fantine. I didn’t know her very well, then, but… As far as I could find out, your biological father abandoned her with you before you were born. When she couldn’t take care of you, she left you with the Thénardiers and sent them money for you, but her manager fired her when she found out.”

            There was so much sorrow and regret in Jean’s eyes, which Cosette wanted only to soothe and wipe away forever, but knew she could not. She breathed in the silence.

            “And Javert,” she said, softly. “You said he arrested her?”

            Jean swallowed, and nodded.

            “Fantine couldn’t find another job,” he said. “Then she got sick. A man tried to assault her, so she fought back, and Javert arrested her.”

            “So he was working…?” Cosette started. Very briefly, Jean squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hand to his face.

            “I told you it was a long story,” he groaned, and recovered himself. He sniffed. “Javert was promoted and transferred so that he worked in the suburb where my factories were.” Jean frowned. “I was never caught after breaking parole,” he added, “I changed my name and sort of… fell off the grid, I suppose. And Javert, I think, he recognised me, but he had no evidence. When he arrested Fantine and not the man who assaulted her, I intervened.”

            “Wait,” Cosette snapped, “he _what?”_

            Jean’s smile was rueful. “I don’t think he saw him provoke her.”

            “I don’t care,” Cosette cried, “he tried to _assault_ her! And Javert just – arrested her and not the other guy?”

            Jean shrugged. “He didn’t see what happened,” he said. “Fantine was poor, the other man was rich, well-dressed, white. I’m not excusing his actions,” he added, hastily, “only explaining them. Javert was not – he _is not_ a good man all the time.”

            Cosette scoffed. “Coming from you, that’s a pretty scathing statement,” she admitted. She huffed a sigh, and dropped her shoulders from where they’d risen, tense and outraged. Jean could see the effect her activist friends had had on her, and inwardly, he smiled at her passion.

            “So Javert tried to arrest her,” she said. “But you stopped him?”

            Jean nodded. “I could see she was sick, so I took her to a hospital instead. Javert… You see, I was already very rich at the time. I had to fill the role I was playing, the respectable business owner, and he thought… I think he thought he was below me. He couldn’t arrest me for anything, or stop me helping Fantine. But he was so angry, I think, that he finally accused me of being who he thought I was, to his superiors. An inquiry was made, he was eventually proved right, and he arrested me.”

            Cosette winced. “In the shop, he called you… Valjean?”

            Jean nodded. He swallowed. “That was my name,” he said. He had not said it aloud, not for many years. It was daunting, now, to start again. “Jean Valjean. That was my name.”

            It seemed that Cosette couldn’t stop herself. She set her tea down on the desk and pushed herself up from the bed, launching herself out to draw her father into her arms from behind. She didn’t have any words for him; but she could press her cheek to his, and her hands to his shoulders and arms as a small, choked sound escaped his broad chest. The conversation could not end there, however.

            “Did you go back to prison?” she asked into his shoulder. He shook his head, jostling her.

            “No,” he said. “My record was too good. I saw Javert at the trial, he was _furious.”_

            Cosette laughed at that. “Gosh, I bet he was,” she huffed. “After all that, you still got away from him!”

            Jean laughed in response, small, but sincere. “He’s absurd,” he said in agreement; and even behind the shame, and bitter sadness of what had become of them, he could not help but let out a little of the fondness he had felt for Javert in the past few months. He thought of Javert’s blustering outrage at being given free coffee, his stilted but earnest politeness, and the bashful way he fiddled with cup handles and his sideburns when he was flustered.

            But that Javert was gone, now. He would not be returning.

            “That must’ve been when you came and got me,” said Cosette, finishing the story for him. “Right?”

            Jean nodded. He sat forward a little, pulling away from her, and as he turned to look at her, she returned to his front, hands trailing on his shoulders, and sat on the edge of the bed to listen.

            “Fantine died,” he said. “A whole combination of awful things… But before she did, she filled all the forms that we needed, wrote all kinds of letters. The Thénardiers, you see, they were extorting as much money from her as they could, but she couldn’t take you away from them only to live with her on the streets. When the trial was over, I legally changed my name to Fauchelevent – she was a woman I once saved from a car accident –”

            Cosette laughed aloud at that, and bent over to rest her forehead on her father’s hand in hers. “Oh gosh, of _course.”_

            Jean matched her smile as he continued. “And I legally adopted you, taking you away from that awful family. We moved to Wahroonga. You grew up, my beautiful, beautiful girl, and I thought I’d never have to see Javert’s awful face again.”

            From her perch on his bed, Cosette straightened, and looked up at him.

            “Then we moved here,” she said, “and he just waltzed into the shop. And he _didn’t_ recognise you?”

            Jean shrugged, not pulling his hand away. “I guess not,” he said. “It’s been ten years, after all, and we’ve both changed. Besides,” he added wryly, “I’m sure Javert is still hesitant to suspect a wealthy business owner of anything so heinous as being an ex-criminal…”

            Cosette scoffed, and stood up to hug him again.

            “He’s awful,” she muttered. “He’s so awful.”

            Jean smiled against her hair, twisting awkwardly to try to hold her in return.

            “He’s just doing his job,” he said, a little reluctantly.

            “Well, it’s a stupid job,” Cosette grumbled into the back of his chair.

            They stayed like that for a moment, leaning on each other in the dimness and silence of their little house, the truth finally out, and no longer quite so heavy on Jean’s firm shoulders. There was so much more he could not tell Cosette, so many details: the stoic, righteous superiority on Javert’s young face when he’d looked down at the prisoners from his checkpoint positions; the rattle in Fantine’s chest, so like Fauchelevent’s under the side of her car, but much more fatal, begging him to look after her child; how his sister’s seven children had looked, crying with hunger but too exhausted to throw tantrums about it. They lived in Perth now, working hard, well-off enough to feel no need to bother him. They had not spoken in many years, and in a way, it was more comfortable like that. To speak would be to open old wounds for both of them; it was better to let the wounds heal.

            He thought of Javert, and the snarling anger in his voice as he’d said Jean’s old name, the glint of betrayal and hunger in his eyes, the violence with which he’d met the revelation. The Javert who looked at him with exasperation at being treated like a valued customer, and who sometimes gave him odd, wavering smiles over his coffee, would not be returning.

            Cosette drew back, and sat down on the bed again, picking up her tea.

            “Is there anything else?” she said, taking a sip. “Anything else I should know?”

            Jean huffed a sigh at that, following suit and wrapping his hands around his mug. “Nothing important,” he said. “Not for now.”

            Cosette nodded, like they’d made a formal agreement, and drank her tea.

            “So Marius nearly missed one of his lectures today,” she said, promptly changing the subject and watching with a pleased smile over her mug as Jean’s shoulders relaxed, and the furrows on his brow softened. “Apparently he met up with Feuilly at Ralph’s, except he’s never been there before? So Jehan had to show him the way before _their_ lecture, because they were in Bosch, so they were headed that way anyway, but Marius had to get back to the law building, not King Street, so when he tried to find his way to class…”

            She chattered happily about her boyfriend’s escapades, and watched her father relax more and more with the comfortable talk. Their discussion, and her questions, had been important – necessary, even – and she knew that, for both of them, there was a feeling of simultaneous horror and relief. But she also knew that there was tea, and hugging, and natural, affectionate conversation, and a thousand ways to tell her father – with words or without – that she still loved him more than ever, despite his guilt about the past.

            Jean drank his tea, and listened to his daughter talk, and was warmed by gratitude.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_March 11_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac,_ _Jiemba_ _Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas_

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        so 1) i know we’re all devastated about what happened because ew

                        2) marius told cosette about this chat and she wanted to see

                        so

 

_Robin Grantaire added Cosette Fauchelevent._

 

                        everyone say hi

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Hi Cosette, we’re all really sorry about what happened last week. I hope your dad’s doing okay?

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        yeah, this whole thing is really uncomfortable in hindsight…… sorry :/

 

 **Jiemba** **Bahorel**

                        I mean, I knew javert was a dick, but i didn’t know he was THAT much of a dick

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        haha, that’s okay, i can….. see why you all thought that way tbh

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        oh god don’t tell me i was RIGHT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        not RIGHT, per se, but. maybe close? honestly, i don’t know, and at this point, it’s kind of moot

 

 **Musichetta** **Vaas**

                        srsly tho is ur dad ok??? like

                        that was way too heavy

                        i don’t want this chat to give you the wrong impression, gossip is gossip, but ultimately, we want ur dad to b happy and comfortable, not

                        well, not THAT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        thanks chetta

                        actually that’s what i wanted to talk about?

             

**Robin Grantaire**

                        can u give us an update on your dad?

             

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        yeah

                        yeah he’s doing okay? we had a big long talk about it and he explained a lot of things

                        I’m not really comfortable telling you the whole story, it’s not mine to tell, but i can give you all the basics, just to clear things up?

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Only if he’s comfortable with it, Cosette.

 

 **Jiemba** **Bahorel**

                        Yeah, only if he’s okay with it?? a little unsated curiosity never killed anyone

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Please

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        okay, well

                        basically???? dad made a small stupid mistake when he was like, our age, and went to prison

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        jesus christ

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        yeah, well. it was a long time, too long, y’know?

 

 **Jiemba** **Bahorel**

                        Definitely familiar with the concept, yes

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        well, THAT’S where he first met javert

 

 **Musichetta** **Vaas**

                        are you kidding me

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Jesus

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        We’re all very sorry for his pains.

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        they didn’t like, really know each other, i gather, but that’s where they met, and years later, dad had to break parole (related to my mum and how he adopted me), and javert arrested him after that

                        he didn’t have to go back to prison though. that’s when he made most of his money. usual backstory stuff.

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        u’ve been listening too hard to ur english teachers cosette

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        haha, THANKS R

                        anyway

                        dad got away with it, basically, bc he’s a good person not some ~dirty recidivist~~

                        this was like?? 10 years ago?

             

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        holy shit, they really do have a history, don’t they

             

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        yeah, basically

                        so when javert found us HERE he didn’t recognise dad properly until he realised who *I* was, bc he also knew about my mum way back when

                        does that all make sense??

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        It’s more than enough, thank you so much for trusting us with this.

             

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        God, yeah, that’s more than we ever expected or really deserved

             

**Robin Grantaire**

                        won’t deny it’s as holey as a pope made of swiss cheese, but uh

                        can kinda see y

                        we won’t pressure you to reveal more than either of u r comfortable with

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Please pass our gratitude and sympathy on to your father.

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        thanks feuilly

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        yeah, seconded i think from all of us

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        absolutely

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        thanks everyone uvu

                        i’ll let him know

                        but for now… i think we can all agree this chat’s a little bit out of line?

                        so no more posting here

                        thanks

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Everyone?

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        Seconded

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        thirded

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        fourthed

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        i’m ending this numerical madness but yes, agreed

                        thanks cosette

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i’d appreciate it if everyone else in the chat responds to this as well, just to make sure

                        i understand if you’re late, but yeah, just, whenever you can

                        thanks everyone

                        uvu

 

                        […]

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        absolutely cosette, thanks so much for your understanding

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        yep, agreed, absolutely

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        chat officially closed everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the overabundance of research I did, I do not actually know much about how the modern Sydney police force works, nor what an Inspector's job is like. I did my best with research and educated guesses, but liberties were obviously taken (both knowingly and unknowingly), and I welcome anyone with police experience to let me know where I went glaringly wrong.
> 
> Couple of notes for people not native to Sydney: Newtown is a very student/liberal suburb, on its way towards gentrification, but still with a heavily artsy, queer vibe and a rather high rate of crime. It's very close to the University of Sydney, which I attend, and the Queer Action Collective of which I have been a part for the last couple of years (though the "Race and Class Discussion Group" for Les Amis is not a real thing). The Newtown Police Station is on Australia Street, very near the train station; have a [Google Maps link](https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/218-222+Australia+St,+Newtown+NSW+2042/@-33.8966171,151.178543,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x6b12b0312cc4354d:0x47376e5975410f59). As mentioned, there are already three real-life cafes on that street last time I checked, so... that's just another part of the AU, I guess. I'm not gonna be posting much more Sydney-related explanations, but feel free to have a wander around on Google Maps to get a feel for Newtown.
> 
> I haven't had time to proofread the AO3 upload, so if you see any formatting errors or issues, please let me know and I'll try to fix them as soon as I can!
> 
> Unspeakable and unending thanks go to my friends Katie and Emma, who were instumental in the formation of the ideas, and plenty of the plot points and even some dialogue, in this fic, and who also provided much-needed moral and editing support.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide warning for this chapter.

            It took three weeks of bad coffee, interrogations, and stake-outs, and one “anonymous” tip which Javert knew for certain was from Marius Pontmercy, before the police tracked the Minette gang down to a hovel-like hideout in Marrickville. Rumour had it that Thénardier and the rest of the gang were planning to lure a rich benefactor away to rob and murder him, and it was Javert’s job to stop it.

            He was absolutely looking forward to it.

            The thrill of the chase: that was one thing he’d always secretly relished in his job. It was rare – most of his work consisted of patrols, petty arrests, straightforward cases, and paperwork – but alongside his devotion to duty, responsibility, order, and justice, he had always harboured a secret vice, an indulgence in the adrenaline rush of getting closer and closer to apprehending a criminal before they could do any more harm. He had felt that thrill when he’d denounced Jean Valjean all those years ago, each piece of the puzzle slotting into place to reveal the truth; and again a shadow of it had shot through him in the café when Jean had revealed himself. This was even better though: this gradual amassing of detail, this incremental advance, and then the physical chase, getting together an armed response team, working with the Tactical Operations Unit, liaising with the Marrickville Local Area Command and driving out to carefully put into place the plan he had so meticulously built. Éponine’s information had been vital, and, loathe as he was to admit it, Pontmercy’s tip had been instrumental in bringing about this particular raid.

            In a matter of hours, he knew, he would have the whole damn lot behind bars.

            The hideout in question was a squat little warehouse – like so many others in the growing suburb – with dark windows, alternately broken or boarded up, and two entrances:  a narrow hallway at the front, and a rolling door at the back, once part of a loading dock. Javert had placed teams ready to bar the back and front doors, with a smattering of officers further away watching the windows. The earpiece he wore let out only steady silence; there was to be no communication unless absolutely necessary.

            Once in place, their job was only to wait, and observe.

            Javert, sequestered in the closest position – the cramped warmth of a derelict shed across the street – watched as a taxi pulled up, deposited a broad-shouldered figure on the curb, and quickly slipped away as the figure entered the building.

            “Victim has entered the premises,” Javert said, low and quiet, into his mouthpiece. “Appears to be a large male, approximately a hundred and eighty centimetres tall, wearing dark clothes, long jacket, beanie. Do not engage. Out.”

            He settled back down, kneeling behind a dumpster and with both eyes on the warehouse across the road, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. His team of constables and sergeants were mostly sequestered in the closed-off section of the shed behind him, with just one senior sergeant in full gear at his shoulder. Staying hidden until the final moment was key; if the gang suspected anything, they would slip away into the night as they always had, and Javert would have failed.

            The signal was a single blow on a whistle, wielded by the one officer who had been stationed inside with as little equipment as possible to avoid detection. She was an inspector from the Marrickville LAC, whose courage, Javert had been assured, would never fail, and she had been in position since mid-afternoon. It was already ten o’clock.

            Javert waited, every nerve singing in anticipation of his triumph. Months of work were culminating in this single raid, and if he pulled it off, half a dozen dangerous criminals would finally be taken off the streets and brought to justice.

            And so he waited.

            Javert glanced at his watch again and again, waiting for the signal. As the minutes dragged past, his felt his jaw going tense, and his knees start to ache with the inactivity; surely, _surely_ the signal should have been given. He could see, very distantly, the flash of torches glimmering beyond the windows.

            “Sergeant Whicher,” he murmured into his radio, “what’s your visual? Out.”

            Whicher was on a roof a block away, with long-range equipment and the best view of the room they suspected the gang to be using, on the second floor of the building with one window only half papered-over.

            “Nothing definite, Inspector,” Whicher returned to him in his ear. “They’re still in the back room, there was commotion earlier, possibly moving out of the room for a bit, but nothing definite. They’re using torches, one floor lamp, all six suspects still seem to be present. Victim entered less than a minute after you gave the call. It’s too dark to tell – I’m certain they’ve got him restrained, but I can’t tell any more than that. Out.”

            Javert took a breath, and settled himself down.

            Another four minutes passed, and nothing changed, until –

            “Inspector, this is Whicher,” came a hurried voice in his air, “definite signs of increased movement, mic’s picking up noises, but nothing distinct. I’m worried about Inspector Chiong. Out.”

            A breath rushed out through Javert’s nose and his mouth went tight.

            “Sergeant,” he growled into the radio, “what details can you give me about the gang’s movements? Out.”

            “Mic’s picking up noises, sounds like – grunting? Possibly someone in pain.” Javert stiffened, but did not interrupt. “There was definitely movement, lights going everywhere for a bit, looked like a scuffle. Oh – no, it’s gone quiet now. Chiong still silent? Out.”

            “Still silent. All units, stand by. First line unit, advance to first perimeter. This has gone on long enough. My team, enter the building, after me. Out.”

            With a glance and a gesture back at the officers in the shed, Javert rose into a crouch and ran smoothly across the road, until he was pressed to the front wall of the warehouse. His team of six were at his heels, and, silently, he motioned them to stay behind him. They were all armed and armoured, like most of the rest of the team, but Javert himself had kept himself light, with no body armour and only his pistol holstered at his thigh, wearing soft shoes and his black greatcoat, buttoned nearly to the collar. He wore only his felt cap on his head.

             Javert tapped the nearest sergeant on the arm, and motioned her to open the door. She crept forward; unlatched the handle; and raised her weapon at the shadows inside.

            Nothing moved.

            Without hesitation, Javert slipped past the sergeant and into the building, making straight for where he knew the stairs to be. Behind him, the officers rustled and clattered faintly in the dark, equipment and clothing making a veritable racket in the silent warehouse and drowning out what little Javert could hear from above. They climbed the stairs, and at the first landing, Javert motioned for them to stay, following up with a swift, signed order.

_‘Until I radio, or the whistle blows.’_

            The officers glanced at him with eyes wide and brows furrowed in alarm; but they did not argue.

            Alone, Javert was all but silent. As he ascended the next set of spiral stairs, he could hear the growing sounds of the gang at the back of the building, voices starting to rise. As he passed down the hall, he checked the room Inspector Chiong had been inhabiting; but there was no one there, only shadows, and a whistle on the dusty floor. His blood rushed through him in rage and anticipation.

            “Whicher here,” came a whisper in his ear, “definite signs of movement, noise is rising – sir, I think they’re trying to get out –”

            Javert switched off his radio: it would not do to risk being found out too early. As he paced down the hall with catlike quiet, he could make out words among the voices at the end of the hall.

            “Why the fuck d’you think she had a whistle?!” someone was hissing. “The cops are here, mate, they’ve got to be!”

            “Then what the fuck are we waiting for?!” another cried, as Javert rounded a corner towards where a chink of white, flickering light slipped out from under a door. He heard the sound of glass shattering, and then a snarl, and the thud of a falling body.

            “Oh no you don’t, you little shit,” someone cried, “you go after us!”

 _“Jesus Christ,_ are you fucking _kidding_ me?” came a voice – and this one Javert knew for certain, had heard countless times, sneering at him over interrogation tables and charges that could never be proved. He stepped silently closer, as Thénardier went on, ranting, “You’re a pack of fucking kids, what do you want us to do, draw straws?” Javert stood before the door, and held out a hand to press it silently open. “Write our names on little slips of paper and pull them out of a fucking _hat?”_

            Javert smirked to himself, tipped his cap from his head, and stepped into the room.

            “Would you like my hat?”

            The entire world seemed to slow to a halt in that moment. Javert was in his element: six wanted criminals, with weapons in hand and malicious intent, a broken window and a rope ladder ready for flight; a bulky man on his knees with a zip tie around his wrists behind him and his head bowed, and the smell of burned flesh in the room; Inspector Chiong, whom he’d only met once, out cold in the far corner, but still breathing. The room was long, and despite the glare of torches upon him, he recognised every ruffian’s face within, even those behind ugly masks, which stared at him in terror and told him that he’d won.

            “Now,” he drawled, stepping further into the room and slipping his hat back on. “I think you’d all better go out by the door. The window’s so dangerous from this high up.”

 _“It’s Javert,”_ he heard Bigrenaille hiss, pressing a pistol into Thénardier’s hand. “Shoot him, Jesus, shoot him!”

            Thénardier took the gun, though his mouth was curled and his eyes wide, and grumbled in a voice which only barely quivered, “For fuck’s sake.” Javert eyed him with nothing short of amusement, and stepped closer. Thénardier was perhaps five metres away.

            “I wouldn’t,” Javert drawled. “You’ll miss.”

            It was unthinkable, even now, that he should fail. He wore no armour, his own weapon was still holstered beyond his immediate reach, and Thénardier’s hands were trembling.

            Thénardier brought both hands up to the gun, and squeezed the trigger. Javert refused to startle at the deafening report, and felt a bullet sing past his shoulder, and smiled.

            “Told you.”

            “Oh, fucking _Christ…”_

            Two pistols and a cricket bat clattered to the floor, and Javert switched on the radio on his belt.

            “All units advance,” he said into his mouthpiece. “Culprits have been subdued. First team, approach and make arrests. Out.” He let go of the press-to-talk, and smiled to one side, showing his teeth. “There’s twenty-four of us,” he said, “and only six of you, so I wouldn’t bother trying to run.”

            Movement in the far corner caught his eye, and he ducked just in time to miss a brick that flew past him, flung by Thénardier’s wife. She advanced on him, snarling invectives; but even as Javert drew himself up, anticipating the attack she would inspire in the rest of the group, a heavy, rhythmic clattering approached, and the door burst open to admit his six armed officers. In his ear, he heard one radio call after another, proclaiming each team to have advanced into place, and the bursting of triumph in his breast was enough to keep him smiling, feeling like it would lift him off the ground. The handcuffs came out, and Javert’s attention refocused on Inspector Chiong. He stepped towards her over the rubbish and abandoned weapons on the floor, and crouched down to check her pulse. There was a thin line of blood seeping out from under her hair.

            “Paramedics to the site,” he said into his radio, “Inspector Chiong unresponsive, in need of medical attention. Out.”

            He stood, as if guarding Chiong’s unconscious form, keeping his back to the room to watch her.

            “Constable Esselle,” he said loudly, “release the victim.”

            He listened through the muffled sounds of protest from the criminals for a word of thanks, and a report of injuries; instead, he heard a hesitant cessation of sound.

            “Uh – sir?”

            Javert froze, and turned to face Esselle. The gang’s torches had been dropped, but the officers now provided their own, and in their sweeping beams, he saw the constable standing over an empty space, only a broken zip tie at her feet. Javert breathed deep, mouth pursing, and reached for his radio.

            “All units alert,” he barked, “victim has escaped through north side window, possible criminal connection. Third and fourth units, fill the area and apprehend him. Male, approximately a hundred and eighty centimetres, dark clothing, beanie – _apprehend him. Out.”_

            Thénardier, he could see, was laughing at him, but one glare as he was dragged from the room was enough to cow him. The gang was taken away, packed into the vans that had drawn up to the warehouse, and taken to Marrickville for processing. The paramedics arrived for Inspector Chiong, carrying her away with tentative reassurances. As the officers moved out, ordered team by team to increase the search for the missing man, and the call was made to get forensics and photographers to the scene, Javert paced slowly across the room to where he had glimpsed the victim – a victim with something to hide, he was sure now – and listened to message after message on the radio telling him that no one had been found.

            The torchlight was harsh, and unforgiving, seeming to make the shadows in the room even deeper around the bright, white beams. Javert stood over the broken zip tie on the ground, torch in hand and chin sunk to his chest, and refused to brood. 

 

            Javert personally delivered the news to the Thénardier children. Éponine had gained emancipation when she was only sixteen, moving away from her parents as soon as she could, getting by, as Javert understood it, on terrible retail jobs, tiny shared flats, and the occasional month of couch-surfing. When Javert asked her parents where she lived, they merely shrugged. Eventually he found her with her sister Azelma living in a sharehouse in Five Dock, and both young women immediately made it understood that Gavroche would live with them until he turned eighteen. Javert advised them of the forms they would have to fill, and left with a courteous nod.

            The victim was never identified. They had left no fingerprints or DNA, and Thénardier staunchly refused to talk unless he was granted amnesty, which would never happen so long as Javert still breathed. After a week of door-to-doors, car patrols, forensics tested over and over, and a veritable mountain of paperwork, Javert was forced to concede that, whoever it had been that Thénardier and the Minette gang had intended to rob and very probably murder, he would never know for certain who they had been, or why they had run.

            He left a post-it note on the hefty Minette gang file, and stowed the case away. Within a week, he was back out of plain clothes, the designation of Detective dropped from his title and the familiar pale blue of his uniform comfortably embracing him once more.

 

* * *

 

            “Come on,” Javert muttered under his breath, pressing his coins into the coffee machine in station reception for the third time. _“Come on…”_

            There was a moment of desperate suspense – and then the display screen flashed ‘INSERT COINS’ once more, and Javert’s money clattered back out the change chute. He let out a long, low groan, and let his head tip back on his neck. The early receptionist looked up at him from her desk.

            “Just go to Madeleine’s,” she said. Javert’s lips thinned.

            “Madeleine’s doesn’t open until eight,” he said. “It’s only ten past seven.”

            The woman scoffed at him. “I can see them from here, Inspector,” she said, “we all know what he’s like. He lets you in any time after seven if you need it, so long as you’re not in a rush. I would know, I’ve done it often enough…”

            “I am _not_ going to Madeleine’s.”

            The woman’s eyebrows rose. Javert wondered what her name was, and how long she had worked there, and why he hadn’t bothered to ask her name before now.

            “With all due respect, Inspector,” she said, “I’d go to Madeleine’s. You’ve been here all night, according to the guy I replaced, I know for a _fact_ you have no intention of going home, and you look practically dead on your feet. Going without will only make you feel worse.”

            “I am _not going to Madeleine’s.”_

            The receptionist shrugged at him.

            “Your funeral,” was all she said, and returned to her work. Javert glared at her, but he could hardly muster up the energy for anything more. He looked out the front windows to the shop across the street. The sun was well and truly up, and it was already sweltering. He could see Cosette taking down chairs and wiping down tables, wearing a brightly-coloured sun dress over dark leggings and a turtleneck, all topped with her standard brown apron. He let out a sigh, interrupted by a single sound.

_“Eugh.”_

            It took only moments for him to step out of the station and cross the road. The shade of the trees on the footpath – as he had predicted months before – was a mild form of bliss, even though summer had technically ended. He stepped up over the curb and knocked thrice on the door, the blinds on the other side rattling a little with each rap. He watched, through the slats, as Cosette dropped her rag on a table and came to the door with a genuine smile on her face.

            She opened the door, and her smile dropped away. Sunny welcome turned to shock and then sternness within a moment.

 _“No,”_ she said. She stepped back again, to close the door; but, at the same time, Jean brushed through the curtain to the back room, carrying a tray of biscuits between bright red oven gloves and babbling about “that Prouvaire friend of yours”. Cosette and Javert both froze in place, the door half closed on the Inspector, as Jean set the tray down on the counter and looked up, the question “Who is it?” dying on his lips.

            They stood like that, the three of them, for what seemed like a very long time. Jean closed his mouth, and swallowed.

            “Ah,” he said. “Detective Inspector.”

            “The coffee machine in the station isn’t working,” he said, brusquely, as if he needed an excuse. He kicked himself internally. “And it’s just ‘Inspector’ now.”

            “I was going to send him away,” said Cosette, over her shoulder. She was effectively still blocking the doorway. “Dad?”

            A tight smile spread itself across Jean’s mouth.

            “No,” he said, “let him in. We have no right to deny our service to customers who need it.” He did not say that Javert looked as if he very sorely needed their service, but the remark was there in the way his eyes brushed over Javert’s hollow cheeks, bruised eyes, and tangled, frizzing hair. Javert had always tried very hard to tame that frizzing, but after nearly forty hours without sleep, he had stopped bothering with it. Cosette stepped back, and he walked into the shop, letting the door clatter shut behind him.

            “The usual was it, Inspector?”

            “Strong espresso,” Javert corrected him. He fished belatedly in his pocket for his change, and drew out the full three dollars. He realised he would have to do a little more than cross the threshold to fulfil the exchange, and stepped firmly up to the counter. Cosette was no help, still finishing with setting up the tables and chairs, and he dropped the money into Jean’s palm as the order was rung up.

            “It’ll just be a moment, Inspector,” Jean said, with a bland smile. “I need to set the machines up; you’re our first customer today.”

            Javert nodded, and said nothing. The silence in the shop was overwhelming, and it wasn’t even really silence. But he was the only non-worker there, and though the espresso machines hissed and clicked, the baskets and jugs clattered in Jean’s hands, and the chairs scraped and clunked as Cosette set up, the lack of chatter was deafening in itself. No one was scribbling on the chalkboard wall, and the room wasn’t even half full of breathing, living, typing, reading, talking, sipping bodies. Javert refused to make conversation with a criminal, though, and kept his lips shut, satisfied that Valjean followed his lead. At one point, a Japanese-looking kid, dressed all in clashing pastels, stuck their head around the corner to the back room, but Cosette ushered them away before they could speak, and Javert and Valjean were left alone in the empty shop.

            Then Jean pressed a lid onto the little cup, and stepped back up to the counter. He said, “Inspector?”, and held out the coffee; and Javert took it, avoiding any contact between their hands, and nodded his thanks, and fled.

            The sun outside was stifling, and Javert dove back into the shelter of the station with extra haste.

 

* * *

 

            Cosette flopped down onto one of the queer space couches with a soft _‘oof’_ , and happily watched her lap be filled with Marius’ legs. To her right, Musichetta got the brunt of his booted feet, and started untying his laces.

 _‘How’s things, sunshine?’_ Bossuet signed from the opposite couch, as Cosette leaned over to kiss Marius’ cheek. Absorbed in the spillage of notes over his lap, he didn’t see it coming, and startled terribly.

 _‘Good’,_ signed Cosette, settling back with a smile. _‘Had a hard time getting to uni through the rain, since the buses were late, but I got to my tutorial on time, so it doesn’t matter. You?’_

            Bossuet snorted. _‘Missed my lecture on gender and the law, but that’s all right, I’m sure it was nothing new. They probably had to spend half an hour explaining the gender binary.’_

 _‘How’s Joly?’_ Cosette asked, and Bossuet shrugged.

_‘Up in Courtyard getting lunch. They went with Feuilly to the markets over the weekend.’_

_‘Oh cool,’_ Cosette signed with a beaming smile. _‘How did it go?’_

 _‘Feuilly took good care of them,’_ Bossuet said with a small, warm expression. _‘No overload or anything, even in that crowd. Feuilly let them stay back in the tent and sort unsold fans when things got rough.’_

            “Ich habe gehört, er hatte einen Auftrag bekommen?” said Marius, looking up from his notes. Bossuet cocked her head at him.

 _‘What was_ that?’

            “Marius, honey,” said Musichetta, patting his ankle with one hand and signing as she spoke with the other; “English, and also signing, please.”

            Marius’ eyes went wide, and Bossuet threw back her head with her hoarse, hawkish laugh.

 _‘Sorry,’_ Marius signed, fumbling his notes – _‘I heard Feuilly got a commission? Courf told me.’_

            Bossuet nodded, mouth wide first with pride, then with glee when Joly walked in with clicking cane.

             “Thank God they put that lift in,” they grumbled, signing with one hand and swinging the bag full of food that hung there. “Hi loves. Anyone seen R?”

            They dropped a kiss on Musichetta’s head as they passed, though she was absorbed in braiding together Marius’ shoelaces, then crossed to Bossuet’s sofa, dropping the bag of food in her lap and kissing her forehead. _‘No R,’_ Bossuet signed as Joly sat beside her and leaned their cane against the sofa arm. _‘Any reason?’_

            Joly scowled. _‘I’m worried,’_ was all they would say. _‘I think they got into a fight at the Newtown Hotel last week, I haven’t seen them since. They looked pretty smashed, I don’t know how they fared…”_

            A quarter-pizza in a paper bag was tossed across to Musichetta _._

 _‘I’m sure I saw them in the shop a couple days ago?’_ Cosette signed. _‘They_ did _look a little bruised, but that’s not really unusual, I just thought they had a bad round in boxing or something.’_

            Joly looked unconvinced. _‘I’m worried,’_ was all they signed in reply, _‘that’s all. Anyway, how’s things with you?’_ they added, taking the sandwich Bossuet handed them.

 _‘All good,’_ Bossuet signed back, opening the container in her lap. _‘Aw, no gnocchi?’_

            She tucked into her pasta with gusto nevertheless. Silence fell, but for the munching of food, and Cosette, seeing an opportunity, squeezed Marius’ knee once, and said and signed to the room at large:

            “Actually, can I have a word?”

            Three full mouths and one pursed one turned to her.

            “It’s about my dad.”

            The eyes above the mouths all turned varying shades of frightened and concerned.

            “Actually, it’s about Javert.”

            Two pairs of eyes turned sour. Musichetta swallowed.

 _‘What’d he do now?’_ she signed with one tense hand, chewing and keeping her other hand on her pizza.

 _‘Well, he came into the shop again last week,’_ Cosette shrugged. _‘I tried to keep him out, but dad said to let him in. He’s only been in a couple times now, but… Should I have let dad do that? Is that healthy?’_

 _‘What were his reasons?’_ Marius signed, and Cosette’s mouth turned displeased.

            “‘We have no right to deny our services to people who need them’,” she said and signed, with an air of quotation. _‘But is that right? Javert was awful to us, surely we’re allowed to stop serving him.’_

            Bossuet looked concerned, swallowing a mouthful of pasta and signing, _‘He’s a grown man, he can make those decisions for himself, but…’_

 _‘Well, he’s not exactly known for being selfish, is he?’_ Joly finished for her, sandwich in their lap.

 _‘Exactly,’_ Cosette signed back. _‘Should I have gone around him?’_

 _‘What did Javert do?’_ Joly asked, and Cosette had to shrug again.

 _‘Ordered coffee,’_ she answered. _‘Took it away. Didn’t say much.’_

 _‘He didn’t try to provoke your dad or anything?’_ Musichetta chimed in with. _‘Didn’t insult him?’_

 _‘No,’_ Cosette admitted, _‘he just… Bought a coffee and went to work. Am I being paranoid?’_

 _‘Definitely not,’_ said six different hands, while Musichetta simply flicked Cosette’s arm. Joly pushed themself forward to the edge of their seat, one of Bossuet’s hands on their back.

 _‘You’re right to keep an eye on him,’_ they said, ‘and _on Javert. If nothing happens, good, but in case something_ does _happen, it’s fine for you to try to look out for it. I think they may both be too close to the issue to deal with it healthily, Javert out of anger or pride or whatever, and your dad out of sheer politeness.’_

            Cosette smiled across at them, awash with gratitude. _‘You think so?’_

 _‘Take their professional opinion,’_ Bossuet signed. _‘Let Jean take care of himself, but look out in case he doesn’t.’_

 

            Fifteen minutes later, Marius tried to get up to go to class, and promptly tripped over his shoelaces, still braided together. Musichetta hooted with laughter and knelt down to untie him, while Bossuet grinned and signed an implication that her bad luck might be catching.

 

* * *

 

 

            There was someone lurking outside the police station.

            Jean could see them from where he stood, wiping down the counters and cleaning the coffee machines between customers. They were a slim, small figure, impeccably dressed and tailored, and they’d been hovering in the dead-end alley to Jean’s left of the station for a good ten minutes now. He wondered what they were doing: were they seeking asylum, giving the police information, turning themself in? Whatever it was, they certainly weren’t keen to enter the station. Perhaps they were simply waiting around to meet someone.

            He rounded the counter, smiling at the customers who looked up at him from their tables, to clear away a few stray cups. Across the road, he noticed movement in one of the upstairs offices. He was reasonably certain that office was Javert’s; every time Jean had paid attention, when that light went out in the evening, Javert would appear on the street a minute later.  Jean checked his watch: 12:11 pm. Usually, he could practically set his watch by Javert’s comings and goings: he often arrived early and left late, but his lunch breaks – when he took them – almost always fell at noon, to the second. Odd, then, that he was leaving ten minutes late.

            Something clicked in Jean’s head. When he looked out the front window, he could see the figure in the alley craning its neck to see the windows up above.

            “Cosette?” he called into the kitchen, as he deposited the cups and saucers on the counter. “Could you mind the shop for a moment?”

            “Out in a minute!” he heard her reply, over the clatter of washed plates. He crossed to the door, pulled it open, and stepped out into the gathering afternoon warmth.

            “Hello?” he tried to call across the street; but the figure paid him no attention. Someone tall and imposing was moving behind the frosted glass, and the figure was pressed to the outside corner of the building with something glinting in its hand.

            Jean started out into the road. As he crossed, Javert stepped out of the station house, slinging his greatcoat over his shoulders and tugging at the cuffs. Not looking up, he straightened his collar and set off, turning down the street as the figure from the alley slipped up from behind.

_“Javert!”_

            Jean heard his own barking voice before ever thinking about uttering a word. Javert’s head snapped up, even as Jean sprinted the last few metres across the street and, just in time, thrust out his arm and caught the figure’s hand, mid-air, in his own. Javert flinched back from him; then turned, and stared over his shoulder, at where the figure’s knife was held only inches from his lower back.

            Javert’s expression contorted, morphing from bland sternness to curled lips and deep frown lines, and absolute contempt below eyes bruised with overwork.

 _“What is this,”_ he growled.

            From up close, Jean recognised the slim figure from the alley as Peter Montparnasse, an old friend of Éponine’s and associate of her parents. Even as he snatched away the blade, he was unfortunately not surprised to find the boy – only eighteen – with a knife aimed at Javert’s kidney.

            “What the hell are you doing, _Valjean?”_ Javert spat at him, even as Jean sucked in a breath and tightened his hand around Montparnasse’s wrist as the boy came to his senses and started to struggle.

 _“Let me go,”_ he snapped, face scrunching up in anger without a hint of fear. Javert turned his furious eye onto Montparnasse, about to speak – but was interrupted by the clatter of light feet, sprinting around the corner from Alton Lane. Éponine was halfway down the street before the sight that met her registered, and she skidded to a halt, backtracked, and disappeared where she’d come from. Javert, growling, spun around and started as if to run, but Jean’s free right hand shot out and grabbed him by the lapel of his coat, holding him in place.

            “Don’t,” he said firmly. “She has nothing to do with this, I promise.”

            Javert’s twisted expression rounded on Jean.

            “And how would you know?” he snarled. “She could be in on the plan, she could be a valuable witness, either way, I need to _restrain_ this boy and _follow_ her –”

            “You need to do nothing of the sort, Javert,” Jean insisted, “trust me, she doesn’t deserve the bother. If she knew about this, she was only coming to stop him –”

 _“Trust_ you?” Javert spat, ignoring Montparnasse’s increasingly annoyed protests. _“Trust_ a criminal and a liar? _I think not.”_

            “Listen,” Peter whined, “are you two gonna fuck it out or arrest me, because I’d rather just go home if you won’t –”

 _“Quiet,_ boy,” Jean hissed. “Don’t make things worse for yourself.”

 _“Worse_ for him?” Javert parroted, with a harsh laugh. “Attempted murder of a police officer will give him plenty of time away, he doesn’t need to make it _worse –”_

            “Javert,” Jean admonished, “you don’t know it was attempted murder –”

            “It bloody well was!” Montparnasse scoffed, and Jean shook his arm.

            “I said _don’t,”_ he commanded. “Do you think a bit of jail time will make you look cool? More rough? More _legitimate?_ It won’t. Believe me, you’ll be eaten up and spat out a shell of a man.”

            “Yes, listen to the ex-con, boy,” Javert sneered, “he certainly knows what he’s talking about.”

            Montparnasse was rolling his eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake –”

            He was cut off as Javert grabbed the back of his exquisite, wine-dark jacket, turning him around and out of Jean’s grip, and, with practised, automatic movements, dragged the boy’s arms behind him as he drew his handcuffs from his belt. Ignoring Montparnasse’s squawks of indignation, he cuffed his wrists together, reciting like a prayer the culprit’s rights, and dragged him into the station. Jean shouted after them, startling into movement and hurrying behind as he resolutely forced away all the terror that rose in him at the thought of walking straight into the den of his enemy.

            “Javert, stop!”

            Inside, the receptionist was on her feet and staring at the sight of Javert – ostensibly not on duty – with the dandy in his grip.

            “Go back to your shop, Mr Fauchelevent,” Javert said as he marched past the front desk, “before I arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

            “Javert, you have to listen to me,” Jean snapped as he followed Javert’s coattails and the eye-rolling Montparnasse. “Jail won’t do him any good, I know him, he hangs around Éponine’s parents, he’s never meant –”

            Jean stopped in his tracks to turn a disgusted glare on Jean. “Don’t try to sell me some sob story, Valjean,” he spat. “I know all about him too, believe it or not, and it was only a matter of time before he tried a stunt like this.”

 _“Leniency,_ Javert,” Jean insisted, as they set off again, towards a set of downward stairs, “that’s all I’m asking of you. Do you really think subjecting him to years in prison will make the streets safer in the long run? He’ll only come out worse than he is.”

            “Then what do you propose I do with him? Let him go?” Javert snapped, stopping and turning again. “He tried to _stab_ me. Even you can’t extend your terrific _pity_ and _charity_ to that. No, wait –” His expression had turned mocking and cruel. “Perhaps you could. I’d expect nothing less from _you.”_

            He turned and stormed off again, descending the stairs. Jean began to follow, but when Javert spoke again, it was with an unmistakeable air of superiority.

            “This is a restricted area, Mr Fauchelevent,” he called over his shoulder, stopping Jean on the second stair, “you are not allowed here.”

            “Javert –”

            From below, he heard the scuffle of footsteps, the clicking of the handcuffs as they were removed. He heard Javert’s voice, as he ordered the constable in charge to search Peter Montparnasse, seize his belongings as evidence, and lock him up until he could be formally charged with attempted murder of a police officer. A minute later, Javert reappeared in the stairwell, the lines and shadows of his worn face even harsher in the dim light, and when he caught sight of Jean still standing near the top stair, he marched towards him like a beast on the prowl.

            “What are you still doing here?” he growled. “I could still arrest you, you know, for this _and_ stopping me from following the Thénardier girl.”

            Jean flinched, and, with no better excuse, as Javert reached him, he held out the knife that he’d taken from Montparnasse. Javert stopped in his tracks.

            “I suppose this is evidence,” Jean said; but Javert did not reply. From where he stood, a few steps below, the knife was practically under his nose, and he would have had to look up, for once, to see Jean’s face. His lips, oddly, had parted.

            “I don’t understand.”

            Jean frowned: this was not the reply he had expected.

            “It’s Peter’s knife,” he said – surely that was obvious, surely Javert had seen him take it. “It’s evidence.”

            Bafflingly – dangerously – Javert stumbled back, dropping down a step, one hand on the railing beside him. He finally looked up at Jean.

            “How did you know he was going to attack me?” he said.

            Jean huffed a sigh, a frown creasing his brow.

            “Surely this is the kind of interview you’ll want to conduct offic—”

            “How did you know?” Javert repeated, cutting him off. Jean’s frown deepened.

            “I was working in the shop,” he said, shrugging. “I looked out the window, saw someone hovering around the station, knew you were probably going to leave on your lunch break soon. He moved when it looked like you were coming down, and I suspected…”

            “You suspected,” Javert echoed. “You didn’t know. You just suspected, so you abandoned your business –”

            “Cosette took over for me –”

            “– and ran across the road just to stop a _possible_ attack – on _me.”_

            Jean tilted his head. “Yes?”

            Javert was looking back at the knife again, almost with fear, as if he expected Jean to strike at him there in the station stairwell above the holding cells. When he spoke, his voice was very flat, and still directed at the knife rather than Jean.

            “Why.”

            Jean’s hand fell to his side in exasperation.

            “I thought you might be in _danger,_ Inspector,” he sighed, “what else was I supposed to do?”

            Javert looked up at that, and there was something almost like horror in his open mouth, and tilting brows.

            “You –”

            He fell abruptly silent. Jean, frowning, opened his mouth to speak, but all of a sudden, Javert cleared his throat, effectively cutting him off.

            “Give me the knife,” he ordered, casual and blunt, just as usual, with straight, steady shoulders, as he advanced a step and held out his hand for the blade which Jean willingly relinquished. “Your fingerprints are already on record, so we shouldn’t have to take them again when we analyse the evidence, but try not to leave the city for a few days. An officer will contact you today or tomorrow to receive your formal statement as a witness, and you may be required to appear in court. Thank you, Mr Fauchelevent. I’m sure you can find your own way out.”

            Jean’s eyes narrowed, his brow creased, and he could not help but try to follow as Javert turned and retreated down the stairs.

            “Weren’t you just threatening me with arrest?”

            “This is a restricted area, Mr Fauchelevent,” Javert said in that same, curiously flat, tone, stopping but not turning to address him. “I know where you live if I need to contact you further about the case. Please return to your work. We wouldn’t want to waste your time. Thank you for your assistance.”

            It was so obvious a dismissal that Jean could not deny it. He watched Javert disappear back down into the cellar, Montparnasse’s knife in his hand; then turned, ascended the few stairs he’d managed to climb, and left the station. When Cosette asked him what had happened, he could only answer that Peter Montparnasse had tried to attack Javert, and been arrested; and, after that, he really could not say.

 

* * *

 

_It’s genuine._

            That one thought spiralled through Javert’s mind even as he wrote down details on evidence bags and incident forms. Back in his office, he brought Montparnasse’s file up on his computer and printed off every page: family history, criminal history, arrest warrants, incident reports, fingerprints, mugshots, ID, residential details, statements. The collection they all made formed a remarkably thick file for one so young; and still Javert could only think of Jean’s innocent, frowning expression as he’d said: _‘what else was I supposed to do?’_

 _What else?_ Javert could think of dozens, hundreds of other things. Jean had had every reason not to approach, from spite, to fear, to lack of understanding, to sheer poor timing. He had had every reason not to insist on leniency for the boy even when it meant following Javert into a restricted area, giving him the perfect excuse to arrest him. He could have let Javert die then and there, on the footpath outside the station house, and lived the rest of his life in peace, making his usual, worried expressions as he gave a statement about how he realised too late what the boy was planning, how it all happened so quickly, how it was such a shame about the poor officer, taken down in his prime…

            Javert wrote his own statement of events, then went to holding to take Montparnasse’s. He recorded and filed all the evidence – the knife, Montparnasse’s protests, Éponine Thénardier’s brief involvement – then started to compare the usual trials and punishments for assault cases to those of murder, attempted compared to completed, civilian compared to officer. He thought of Valjean’s gentle smile, and generosity, and the hand that had stopped a knife for him, and wondered that they could possibly be real, coming from a criminal – yet that all the evidence now indicated that they _had_ to be real, or else why would Jean have done any of it in the first place, if he was just going to waste all his cunning on an aspiring murderer?

            Javert called one of the station’s usual lawyers. He went to the security desk, and watched Montparnasse sit in his little barred cell and fume; then he went back to his desk, and the file he had built.

            It was only when he started nodding off at his desk that he realised the time, and that he hadn’t had more than five hours of sleep for the previous three days. He shook himself, and stood, and without thinking, walked across to Madeleine’s.

 

            Jean’s eyes flew wide open when he walked out from the kitchen to find Javert sitting at one of the centre tables with a pile of papers overflowing from their manila folder and onto the surrounding chairs. Javert seemed not to notice Jean’s appearance, nor to hear his gasp, though Jean was certain it had been terribly audible. He approached Azelma at the machines, and asked her about Javert’s appearance that evening.

 _‘He came in about an hour ago?’_ Azelma signed, with a shrug, between spooning sugar into cups and drawing the coffee. _‘Ordered coffee, sat down, started working. Like he used to.’_

            Jean stared over the machines at where Javert was running the fingers of one hand over and over through his sideburns, while the other hand tapped away with a pen at the files. The glass at his elbow was empty, and the bags under his eyes visible even from across the room. He looked like he was about to fall asleep then and there on the table.

            Twenty minutes later, Jean glanced at Javert’s table as he stacked empty milk cartons into crates to see the inspector scribbling studiously on the back of a photograph. He lifted a milk crate in each hand and carried them to just outside the front gate. When he returned to the café, Javert was slumped over the paper-strewn table, head on his splayed and folded arms and pen still sticking out from between his fingers, fast asleep.

 

            “Javert?”

            There was a hand on his shoulder, broad and gentle. The kind, low voice came closer.

            “Javert, wake up, it’s already nine.”

            Javert sniffed, gasped, and raised his head an increment from his arms. He blinked but the world outside was as dark as within, and he couldn’t make much out. The kind voice was soothing him now.

            “Hush,” it whispered. “Good evening.”

            Javert blinked again; raised his head a little further; and turned his eyes towards the source of the voice. Jean Valjean ( _Fauchelevent_ ) was crouched next to him, with his hand on Javert’s back and his face on his level, looking so very kindly at him that Javert wondered how he’d ever assumed this man was merely a criminal. _It’s genuine,_ he reminded himself, and marvelled at it. _It’s genuine._

            “It’s nine o’clock, Javert,” Jean murmured. “Do you want me call you a taxi?”

            Javert pushed himself up, and surveyed his surroundings. He was in Madeleine’s, at a centre table. The shop was dark – machines silent and chairs stowed legs-up – and the table under his arms was covered in papers, scribbled notes, photos, reports, all stacked upon Peter Montparnasse’s file. He sniffed again, and screwed his eyes shut for a moment.

            “How long have I been here?” he asked, when he’d opened them again.

            “You came in around six, I think,” said Jean, “and fell asleep about seven-thirty. I let you sleep – you looked like you needed it.”

            There should have been mockery in his quirked brow, but instead, there was only fondness, sympathy, patience. Jean had let him sleep there – probably shepherded customers away from him so as not to disturb him – even as he shut up the shop. Even when Javert was patently in the way, and he’d had every right to wake him and chivvy him outside, he’d let him sleep there.

            “Are you still going to try to arrest me?” Jean asked, and though it was a light question, Javert could hear the fear which underlay it. He had put that there.

            “No,” was all he could say. For some reason, Jean only frowned further.

            “I suppose it’s too late for me to give my statement…” he said carefully.

            “An officer will contact you tomorrow,” Javert heard himself mutter. He looked away from Jean – couldn’t bear the sight of his worried eyes – and set about shuffling his papers back into some kind of order, slipping them into the folder until he could close it once more.

            “Do you want me to call a taxi?” Jean repeated. “You look exhausted, I don’t know if you should be out there on your bike right now.”

            “I’ll be fine,” Javert shrugged. “I’ve been worse. As soon as you start pedalling, it wakes you up again.” Even now he could feel the dregs of sleep slipping from his brain. Jean had given him a full REM cycle; had Javert been a betting man (which he definitively wasn’t), he would’ve wagered that Jean had done it on purpose.

            “You can sleep here if you need to,” Jean offered, “we have a spare room. Or I know you have a sofa in your office.”

            “I’ll be _fine.”_

            Jean smiled faintly at that.

            “All right,” he said, and stood. He held out a hand to help Javert up, but it was ignored, as Javert scooted back his chair, gathered up his papers, and stood on his own.

            “I need to put this away,” he muttered, nodding at the file in his arms as he headed towards the door with Jean at his side. “And my bike’s still in my office.”

            Jean’s smile twisted a little in one corner.

            “All right,” he said again. His hand had somehow come to rest on the small of Javert’s back. It was warm. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

            Javert’s mind had gone blank.

            “I’ll be here,” he said. He did not meet Jean’s eyes. “Good night.”

            He slipped out from under Jean’s hand and crossed the darkened room. A few moments later, he’d left the shop, crossed the road, and disappeared into the police station. Jean wiped down his table; propped up the chairs; locked the door; and went upstairs.

            Had he been watching, Jean would have noticed that Javert did not leave after merely dropping off some files. It was two hours later that Javert appeared, dishevelled in his hair and face, but still wearing his uniform, gear and all. He wheeled his bike onto the road with an unutterable sense of calm, lights flashing, and hopped on, turning towards King Street. The chain whirred and clicked into place; and then he was gone.

 

* * *

 

_To the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, Mr Keith James, APM_

_Some Notes for the Good of the Service_

_First: I beg that Commissioner James read and consider this._

_Second: The use of the phrase “reasonable force” in training, regulations, and guides for new and experienced police officers is too vague. Though leeway must be given for the possibilities to be faced in the realities of individual incidents which may occur in an officer’s work, the lack of definition and self-regulation allows the phrase to be used as a defence even when officers overstep the boundaries of their duties and utilise unnecessary and harmful force against civilians, both guilty and innocent. This requires clarification._

_Third: Incarceration rates in Australia have doubled within the last twenty years, while 40% of offenders are imprisoned for non-violent or non-sexual crimes. This harshness of punishment has led to an overcrowded and inefficient prison system which only leads to more criminal and violent activity both within and outside the prisons. White collar crime, and offenses related to drug possession and traffic violations, should not be punished with prison sentences._

_Fourth: The current system of rehabilitation and parole, especially for serious and violent offenders, is inefficient, with rates of recidivism only increasing. This system has done little or nothing to discourage or reduce serious crime, or to reduce recidivism. Stricter, mandatory parole guidelines must be implemented for violent criminals, and re-education and rehabilitation courses be improved towards increasing empathy and regard for consequences on individuals and the community._

_Fifth: Laws barring inmates from voting in local, state, and federal elections if they are serving a sentence of three years or more is undemocratic. If citizens – even criminal ones – are to be barred from exercising their democratic rights, it should be for only the most violent and communally-harmful crimes._

_Sixth: Immediate action must be taken to improve the responses of all police officers to victims of rape and sexual assault. Wholesale education and protocol training must be executed across all ranks and commands within the New South Wales Police Force, and active efforts must be made to advertise these improvements and allow victims of rape and sexual assault to report to the police without fear of humiliation, vilification, or disregard._

_Seventh: The disproportionate incarceration rates for Aboriginal Australian citizens cannot be attributed to inherent degeneration or socio-economic situations alone. Police officers who target and attack Aboriginal Australian suspects must be re-educated or dismissed._

_Eighth: Furthermore, even after arrest, overly harsh sentencing, bail terms, and parole terms are used specifically against Aboriginal Australian suspects to punish and restrain them. This legal flaw must be rectified._

_Ninth: The rates of deaths in custody of Aboriginal Australian citizens at the hands of police officers is a disgrace to the nation’s police forces. The lack of justice brought to the culprits is only more shameful. Officers who utilise lethal force against any person brought into custody – and especially against Aboriginal Australian citizens who are disproportionately targeted and attacked – need to be dismissed from the service and charged with murder._

_Tenth: The separation of Aboriginal children from their families is an ongoing practice which should have been eliminated decades ago. Whether the reasons given are for cleansing the Australian population, or protecting the children, the system which misunderstands and erases Indigenous culture and actively harms and traumatises Aboriginal Australian children must end._

_Inspector John Javert, BM, APM_

_Newtown LAC_

_23:09, May 6th, 2015_

 

* * *

 

            By the time he made it to Circular Quay, he was out of breath, sweat prickling at his back and under his collar and fingers numb from the wind. He locked his bike and helmet to one of the lamppost racks behind the bus stops on Alfred Street, and pulled his greatcoat out of the saddlebags, shrugging it on as he crossed the deeply-shadowed road. There was still a smattering of people about – most of them drunk – wandering here and there, or waiting in the bus shelters, as he passed under the train station. It was ten minutes until midnight, so he tapped on with his Opal card at the barriers, and stood by on the wharf, rocking very gently, and _thought._

            He had spent those hours in his office, before writing his final letter, doing nothing but that: _thinking,_ as he very rarely had before. He had avoided such introspection in his life – deemed it unproductive, boring, egocentric, insubordinate – so now, with the whole weight of forty-six years bearing down on him, he had a lot of catching up to do. There were only a few points he could focus on; but they were points which had grown to such magnitude in his mind that they overruled all else.

            He could have arrested Jean Valjean. He had every reason to suspect the man, and to question him, for obstructing him in the fulfilment of his duties in following the Thénardier daughter. The man was a repeat offender, after all: everything that he been taught, everything he’d lived by, told him that he had had the perfect opportunity to arrest a recidivist, and keep the streets a little safer. He would have been within his rights. He would have been doing his duty.

            And he would have been _wrong._

            There was nothing that could adequately explain it. Logically, there was very little to set Valjean apart; but in his gut – in his shrivelled heart – Javert knew it would have been wrong to arrest the man. He had once thought well of the business owner Jean – had even admired the man, fallen hard for him, utterly enthralled – but the knowledge of his true identity had stung him, convinced him that ‘Jean Fauchelevent’ was no one and nothing, just the ruse of a criminal in hiding. He had known as if it were fact that nothing Jean did was to be trusted or believed, especially not if it were done towards Javert, for what criminal could look kindly on the man who had hunted and arrested him, and would gladly do so again? What ex-prisoner and parole breaker could have a patient smile and gentle hands, and a kind, warm air of humility and generosity? It was impossible, inconceivable, unreal.

            Yet here he stood, the product of one ex-con’s mercy.

            Jean had been in no position to intervene. He had been under no obligation or need, and no one would have blamed him for having been too distracted to notice, too slow to realise, or too late to stop, what had happened. But instead, Jean Valjean had raced from the safety of his shop and practically into Javert’s waiting arms, and had stopped Montparnasse’s knife in its path. He had saved the boy from prison, undoubtedly; but he had also saved Javert’s life, even if that had meant the cold sting of handcuffs on his wrists once more. There had been no need for him to save Javert’s life.

_Yet here he stood._

            That one, small act had unleashed a conflagration in Javert’s mind. For if that had been real – and how, how could it not be, what possible reason or self-interest could Jean have had for saving his enemy who had reviled him – then everything else was suddenly in question. All the good deeds and kind words Javert had suspected, had they all been genuine? Every charity case, every free coffee, every hour of work experience he gave to disadvantaged kids and every gentle smile he’d pressed upon Javert; had it all been real? Javert had convinced himself – _fooled himself_ – into believing that Jean was nothing, _could be_ nothing, because he was a criminal, so every piece of him Javert had believed had hurt even more in its apparent falsehood. What, then, was he to do with the knowledge that he had persecuted this good man – this _saint_ – for so long, and had been in himself committing the highest of injustices?

            (He refused to think, after that, about how many others he might so have mistreated. They were far, far away in the past now, beyond this revelation. If he thought about them, he might simply drive himself out of his own mind, and fall down shaking and gibbering at the merest hint of his hypocrisy.)

            But there was the crux of the matter. He had always thought himself just, and good, and lawful, always held himself to the same high standards as he did everyone else, knowing in his innermost mind that if he failed as others failed, he would apply to himself to the appropriate punishment. Yet here he stood, having failed just so, with Jean Valjean lying safe and sound in the rooms above his coffee shop: a thief, a parole-breaker, an obstructer of justice, warm and asleep in the comfort of his own home when Javert should have taken him away at the first opportunity. He _had_ to arrest the man!

            And yet –

_And yet…_

            He could not. It was a simple fact, as simple as the harbour water lapping at the wharves, and the constellations, hidden by the lights of the city, which nevertheless still wheeled overhead. To let Jean go would be a lawful, police officer’s injustice; but to arrest him would be a moral one.

            He had never before considered the possibility that there might be a justice beyond that of the law.

            The midnight ferry pulled up beside the wharf, rumbling and stuttering in its engines, water churning around its sides. With practised, easy movements, the workers dragged gangplanks into place and opened gates, letting the last passengers stagger off towards dry land and announcing their destination.

            “Mosman Bay service!”

            Javert and three others stepped on board. The others, unheeded by him, sought the shelter of the indoor seats, while Javert slipped around the side of the boat, and stood firm under the balcony at the stern, looking out over the red benches and green railings to the cove, the water, the bridge, and the north shore, itself a long shadow and a sprawling clutter of lights on the other bank.

            The engines roared into life, and, slowly, the ferry trundled away from the wharf, turned in place, and surged off, speeding out of the quay and past the MCA, the Opera House, the bridge pylons, and into the harbour. The lights of the ferry spilled from the side windows, but at the back, where Javert stood, the shadows gathered. He could hear faint chatter elsewhere; where he stood, all was silent but for the foaming water and shuddering engines. He stepped forward, and leaned his hands on the railing, knuckles taut.

            Out in the harbour, the water was black and almost glassy, like a thing simultaneously solid and rippling, a vast expanse the mysteries of which could never be truly known. Before and below Javert, however, it spread out, a lengthy double-V which chased them away from Circular Quay, light spray falling upon his cold, exposed hands and face. Here, the water foamed black and white, skidding past Javert’s eyes so fast it became merely a blur. Here it churned and boiled, and would pull a human body down in seconds, into the ferry’s wake.

            Here he could hand in his final resignation, and be done with the whole damned business of hearts and confusion.

            “Well, well, what do we have here?”

            Javert’s heart turned to ice, and his whole back tensed up as if expecting an attack. A boy’s feet were clattering down the stairs from the balcony above, and there sounded a teasing, smirking voice he never wished to hear. He’d arrested those footfalls more than once, and spoken where he knew he should have signed, and now – _now –_

            “Inspector Javert, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Gavroche Thénardier called, much closer to him now. “What brings you to this fine, midnight ferry?”

            Javert stood still. If he said nothing, and moved not at all, perhaps the boy would leave him be. He could not do this with an audience, and certainly not one so young. What would Jean Valjean say if he knew?

            Gavroche had reached him by then, and leaned back on the railing to his left, hair flicking about in the wind and mouth lopsided in the dark.

            “It’s very rude not to respond, you know,” he drawled. “I am a fucking delight.”

            He grinned at that, and glanced up at Javert, who wanted desperately to hide this terrible, private thing from any audience, let alone this delinquent boy, but who had become petrified under only the force of his sarcastic voice. The boy would notice. Gavroche was a smart kid; he was going to notice.

            Somewhere, distantly, from the corner of his eye, Javert saw the smirk drip from Gavroche’s face, to be replaced first by a sort of horrified shock, and then – bewilderingly – _anger._ He straightened, pushing himself up off the railing, and his young, acne-smattered cheeks scrunched up, his wide mouth curling in on itself.

            “Are you fucking with me?” he demanded, followed by the most hated order: “Don’t you dare.”

            He knew it was the coward’s way out; but could he not at least have been granted that? Shame seeped, cold and sickening, down his throat.

            “Would you look at me?” Gavroche snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

            Javert did nothing. He just wanted the boy to _leave._

            Gavroche seemed almost to lunge at him, from what Javert could see without going to the insurmountable effort of turning his head. “Guess what?” he spat; and lifted one knee, slamming his heel so hard into the red bench slats that the outermost one snapped in a mess of splinters and chipped paint. “Guess what, destruction of property,” he demanded. “You gonna write me up?”

            Javert had no strength left to fight the boy, who, besides, was only goading him on. What was he supposed to do – arrest the boy? He had no power now; the letter to the Commissioner, at the very least, had confirmed that.

            “Oh, what’s this, _Officer?”_ Gavroche went on, waving a little ziplock bag in his face, from which he flinched away as if it might burn him. _“Drug possession?_ Aren’t you going to arrest me?”

            Surely the boy would have been glad to see him drown; so why did Javert feel like Valjean stood before him, holding some poor kid’s knife away from Javert’s heart?

            Gavroche threw the bag to the deck of the ferry, and threw his whole body at Javert, shoving him in the side and sending him stumbling away from the rail, almost tripping over his own feet. Javert righted himself, and finally looked at the damn kid, his wince turning quickly into something halfway between frowning and gaping. He saw Gavroche’s face draw out from fury into exasperation.

            “That’s fucking assault!” he shouted. “I just _assaulted_ you, I assaulted a cop, aren’t you going to arrest me? Aren’t you going to arrest me you _stupid fucking prick!”_

            His last words were punctuated with more blows to Javert’s chest, from which he flinched and hunched away, feeling only a vacant horror that the boy had gotten himself involved. He could not arrest him. He simply could not.

            Gavroche, with the skill of someone who’d been a part of many an arrest before, reached around to Javert’s belt even as Javert tried to shy away, and tore the handcuffs from their pocket at his hip. He grabbed Javert’s hand in his small, cold fingers, and pressed the cuffs repeatedly into his palm, still snapping, “Come on, let’s go! Put me in handcuffs because guess what, I jumped the barrier at Circular Quay, I’m a fucking delinquent, let’s _go!”_

            Javert, shivering, stepped back from the boy and pulled his hands away, so that the handcuffs clattered to the deck. He finally spoke, flat and empty.

            “Stop this.”

            Gavroche looked about to snarl, so Javert repeated himself.

            “Stop this. It’s not your concern.”

            Surely, someone from elsewhere on the ferry should have come to investigate the noise; but no more prying eyes came to witness his fall, as Gavroche’s face fell open, and he cried:

            “Not my – what the fuck kind of piss-poor excuse is that?! What the _fuck_ kind of choice is that?”

            Javert wanted to do something to stop him shouting, but he could hardly move. His handcuffs were still lying dormant on the deck of the ferry.

            “What the _fuck kind of world is this?”_ Gavroche was ranting. “If Inspector _fucking_ Javert can’t deal, what the fuck kind of chance do the rest of us stand?!”

            Gavroche raised his fists again, and he punched Javert in the ribs and chest; little teenaged fists which could do nothing to his older, larger body, but which struck his soul like iron. As Gavroche went in for another blow, Javert felt his own hands rise: shy, defensive, and begging more than his mouth ever would. Gavroche heeded the plea, and stood there, breathing hard, and staring at him as if the world had turned on its head.

            Of course, for all Javert could understand, it probably had.

            Below them, the engines lowered to a thrum, the black water churning less fiercely as the ferry drifted into place at the wharf. Things had not gone as Javert had intended.

            Gavroche was pulling out his phone.

            “Come on, Inspector,” he said, nodding at the wharf, “this is our stop.”

            Javert obeyed. With Gavroche practically at his back, he bent to pick up his handcuffs (noting, as he did, Gavroche’s parallel movement to retrieve his little stash of pot), and was marched back along the side of the boat and across the gangplank, onto the deserted wharf. At one point, he thought he saw Gavroche reach for the pistol holstered at his thigh; but his hands twitched at that – the thought of an unqualified minor with his firearm in hand – and Gavroche seemed to relent. Once off the wharf and on the dark road, Javert slowed to a halt, head bowed, the crease between his eyes as deep as ever and his mouth a tight line: the same as always and inexpressibly different. He couldn’t move another step.

            “Hey, sorry,” he heard Gavroche say into the phone behind him, “do you think your dad could come pick Javert up from Cremorne Point Wharf? … Yeah, I’ll speak to him. Hi Jean, Inspector Javert needs a lift home. Cremorne Point Wharf. I’ll explain when you get here. … Thanks. Bye.”

            The street lamp directly above them was out. Javert idly supposed that someone ought to call it in, but he couldn’t think beyond that simple start. His handcuffs were still clutched in his palm, so he put them away, with slow, careful movements, as if he were moving through treacle or harbour water. His coat hung from his shoulders like a set of weights, dragging him down; though it ended above his ankles, it felt more like the hem must surely have been sweeping the street.

            Behind him, Gavroche had hung up the phone, and now he stalked around Javert’s side and away to sit on the low garden wall at the edge of the carpark, one knee jittering in the dark. He looked at Javert, until the man – slowly, unwillingly – dredged his own feet out of some moral muck and dragged himself across the asphalt to stand a little closer.

            “Why?” Gavroche asked; and Javert felt that he had no adequate answer.

            “I was wrong,” was all he could say. “I always have been.”

            Gavroche very kindly did not press the issue. They stayed where they were for a good few minutes, Gavroche with his eyes on Javert as if he still expected him to do something rash and violent, and Javert merely standing, no thoughts in his head beyond faint, flitting notions: justice, laws, the churning water, and Jean Valjean’s sad, regretful expression when he’d introduced his daughter to the police officer he knew would then hate him without remorse.

            How wrong he had been. How wrong, how wrong, how achingly, destructively wrong. How could he ever have entertained even the thought of putting that kind old man behind bars again?

            Beyond and behind, the harbour slapped against rock and wood, forming a faint, intermittent soundtrack of tapping, sucking, splashing noise. Javert dragged his feet across the pavement again, and sat next to Gavroche on the wall.

 

            Twenty minutes later, the headlights of a taxi seemed blinding in the harbour’s dark. Gavroche leapt to his feet as the cab pulled up, and, wreathed in shadow, Jean Valjean stepped out of the back door, looking about with a frantic motion of his white head, as if in a panic. Javert, agonisingly, pushed himself to his feet, and watched as Jean lowered his head to talk to Gavroche. A moment later, Jean was looking across at him, with an expression Javert couldn’t make out in the dark. Gavroche hung back as Jean approached, on hurrying, harried feet; but his arms were rising, as if to touch or to hold, and Javert could not stand – could not handle the thought –

            Bile rose in his throat, and he stepped back into the wall, flinched away from Jean’s open arms. Jean looked at him, and lowered his wide hands, and breathed long and slow.

            “Come on, Javert,” he said; very soft, very kind, and far, far too gentle. Javert wanted him to beat him, to shout at him, to tell him how stupid and cruel he’d been – anything but this unbearable mercy which made him bow his head in further shame, too afraid to raise his eyes as if the raw sight of Jean might burn him up, yet still leave him, untouched and whole instead of ash, behind.

            “Let me take you home.”

            Gavroche had disappeared, no doubt to some friend’s home or other, as was his wont. Javert chanced a careful glance up at Jean, and he did not catch fire, nor drown in ignominy. Jean led him to the taxi, and didn’t touch him as he climbed into the back seat, then shut the door behind him and rounded the car, to come in the other side. Javert, with numb fingers, did up his seatbelt.

            “Address?” asked the driver. Jean looked across the dim length of the back seat.

            “Javert?” he said. Javert did not want to speak.

            “Should I just take you back to King Street…?” the driver asked, when there came no answer, but Jean was stubborn, and shook his head, not taking his eyes off Javert.

            “Inspector Javert,” he said, firm and undeniable, a man from whom Javert could easily have taken orders his entire life – “where do you live?”

            Javert breathed once; twice; swallowed; and said:

            “Sixty-four Crystal Street, Petersham.”

            And that was all.

 

* * *

 

            The taxi ride was silent, and awful. It wasn’t hard for Javert to forget he had company, but only because the rumbling of ferry engines and churning water still seemed to echo in his ears. It was all he could think of. He had searched for silence and solace in those waters – would have found them, too – would have banished all the doubt and thought and fear that Jean had sparked in him, and found oblivion in the harbour when there seemed to be nothing else left for him to do.

            He knew exactly how long it took for a person to drown.

            Jean, mercifully, matched Javert’s silence once he’d given his address. When finally the taxi turned into Crystal Street and pulled up next to Javert’s building, Jean kept his voice low – like he might around a sleeping child – as he paid the driver and opened his door. Javert wanted to tell himself that he stayed to make sure Valjean paid enough, and not because his arms felt too heavy to lift and open the door, but he had never been very comfortable with lying, even to himself.

            Jean crossed around behind the cab, and opened Javert’s door for him.

            “Javert?”

            He breathed deep (and how horrific, that he could still do that), and climbed out of the cab. Jean shut the door behind him, and he walked around to his front door, fumbling his keys from his pocket, as the taxi drove away. He could feel Jean’s firm and steady presence behind him as he opened the front door onto the cramped hallway, and started to climb the narrow flight of stairs to his flat.

            “I’m amazed,” Jean said, very quietly. “How on earth do you carry your bike up these stairs every day?”

            Javert stopped in his tracks. Jean did not bump into him, but it was a close thing. Javert didn’t answer.

            He kept walking.

            His flat, when they reached it, was as it always was, but for the first time, Javert felt conscious of it. He supposed he’d never really had visitors; how odd, then, that Jean Valjean was the first. Everything was in its place, faintly lit by the streetlamps outside the window: the kitchenette to the right, door to the bathroom on the left, and the main room ahead, with its king single bed tucked around the corner to the left, dresser and wardrobe beside it, weights and rolled-up yoga mat under the window, and bookshelves and desk just beyond the kitchen, the latter strewn, haphazard, with papers, old mugs, and bowls. The kitchen was neat, and there was a basket of dirty washing on the floor at the foot of the unmade bed.

            Javert stood in the doorway. In a week’s time, the landlord could have sold all of it off and found another tenant.

            After a moment, Jean slipped into the flat and shut the door behind them, squeezing past Javert’s still and expressionless form. He fumbled along the wall for a light switch, and looked around at the little flat.

            “And I thought I lived sparsely.”

            Javert did not respond. Jean sighed.

            “Here,” he said, softly, “let me help you.” His hands appeared on Javert’s shoulders, and Javert turned his head at last, as if to watch as Jean eased the coat from his arms. Jean looked about him for a moment, coat in hand, until –

            “It goes on the hook behind the door.”

            Jean smiled gratefully at him, and hung up the coat behind them. Then he leaned forward, flicked open the button of the holster on Javert’s thigh, and took out his gun. He held it gingerly between his fingers, like something dirty, before placing it on the kitchen counter beside them. Javert had only three times fired his weapon in the course of his duty, but he supposed it was dirty indeed.

             _Duty._ As if that word had meaning anymore.

            “Come on, Javert,” Valjean was saying, “let’s get you into bed.”

            Jean was fumbling with his gear belt and holster, trying to find where the straps fit. Javert opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. He raised his hands, his fingers working without thought on the buckles he’d grown so used to. He tasted bile.

            Jean dropped the belt and holster onto the kitchen counter next to the pistol, and, with his hand on Javert’s back, gently steered him into the main room. _Away from the pistol,_ Javert realised, _in case I try to shoot myself._ It was all terribly sensible.

            They stood at the foot of the bed, then, and, when Javert made no move to undress – his arms were still too heavy, his legs stiff, his lungs full of lead – Jean raised his hands. First he loosened Javert’s tie, slipping the end through the knot and freeing it from the collar, not whipping it away, but very carefully reaching up to lift it over Javert’s bowed head. He dropped the tie onto the bed, then moved on to the shirt, undoing each button from the collar down, tugging the tails free, and folding it over Javert’s shoulders and off his arms, leaving the planes and hair of his chest (he’d always thought it skinny) kept only barely out of sight by his singlet. The shirt was dropped into the dirty washing basket. Jean stepped around behind Javert and eased his hair free of its elastic, Javert’s eyes falling closed at the tugging; then Jean moved back to his front, reaching for the button of his trousers, and it was all suddenly too much. Javert flinched, and his hands shot up to cover Jean’s, and he breathed very hard before he could speak, not looking at Jean’s concerned, upraised face.

            “Please,” he whispered, slowly. “Just give me the gun –”

 _“No.”_ Jean’s voice was that same stern, magistrate’s voice that he’d used when he’d revealed himself, and Javert had responded with nothing but cruelty and thoughtless contempt. The memory made him feel sick.

 _“Please,”_ he said. His voice was low and hoarse. “I can’t keep doing this, I can’t – you have to let me –”

            He broke off with a shuddering breath. Jean’s expression was hard.

            “No.”

            Javert breathed, in and out, again. And again. He had never been quite so aware of his breathing.

            He swallowed.

            Under Javert’s slack fingers, Valjean unbuttoned and unzipped Javert’s trousers. As they drooped, he urged Javert to sit at the end of the bed, and knelt before him, tugging away the trousers and tossing them into the basket, then untying his boots and pulling them off, followed by his socks. The shoes he left next to the bed, and the socks went into the basket. Javert cleared his throat.

            “The boots go at the end of the counter,” he said, in a flat voice. Jean glanced up at him, then over his shoulder, to the floor at the end of the kitchen counter, where a pair of sneakers was already resting. His mouth twitched into a brief, small smile. Jean stood, and the boots joined the sneakers, the tie and hair elastic were dropped onto the dresser, and the pyjamas on the bed were handed to Javert, who looked at the cloth in his hands like he didn’t understand it. After a moment, Javert slipped his feet into the pyjama bottoms, and stood, tugging them up to his waist. He swapped out the singlet for the old t-shirt, pulling each over his head.

            “There now.” Jean was watching him, care and concern writ in the lines of his face. “Into bed.”

            Javert did as he was told, pulling the doona up over his shoulders and keeping his back to the wall. Jean switched off the light, and turned around the chair at the desk, settling down in it like a sentry. Javert blinked at him down the length of the bed.

            “Good night, Javert,” Jean said, and Javert closed his eyes. He had expected it to take some time to get to sleep; but the night had left him exhausted, and within ten minutes, he’d relaxed under Jean’s gaze, and quickly eased into unconsciousness.

 

            Javert woke to the smell of coffee.

            He sniffed a couple of times, frowned, and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his right hand, pushing himself upright on the left. He peered around the corner to where Jean was standing, plunging coffee with one hand and holding his phone to his ear with the other. Whoever was on the other end picked up, and Jean spoke.

            “My name is Jean Fauchelevent, I own the café across the street.” A slight pause. “No no, nothing like that. I just needed to inform the police station that Inspector Javert won’t be able to make it in to work today.”

            Javert’s heart skipped a beat.

            “I’m at his flat,” Jean was saying, “and he’s not feeling very well. I can’t say when he’ll be able to come back to work, but it certainly won’t be today.”

            Another pause. Javert heard the indistinguishable chatter of someone on the other end of the line, and watched as Jean turned, frowning, to look over his shoulder.

            “One moment,” he said, and held the phone to his shoulder. “They want to know what to do with Peter Montparnasse.”

            Javert’s lip curled. His throat felt thick and dry. “I left a note with reception.”

            “He says he left a note with reception,” Jean said into the phone. His frown grew at the response. His next words were to Javert. “She’s saying they’re confused about the orders?”

            “I should think I made myself perfectly clear,” Javert sneered, a little hoarsely. “He’s to be released until his court date. I recommended seventy-two hours of community service for attempted intimidation of a police officer.”

            Jean’s eyebrows were starting to disappear into his hair. He said into the phone: “Yes, just do as the note says, I think.”

            Javert snorted, and flopped back onto the pillows as Jean said goodbye and hung up the phone. Footsteps padded across the mottled carpet, and Javert shut his eyes.

            “How are you feeling?” said Jean’s gentle voice. Javert shut his eyes harder.

            “The coffee smells good,” he said.

            “I didn’t know you bought fair trade,” Jean replied, his smile audible in his voice. Javert opened his eyes.

            Jean was standing a few steps away from the bed, with his arms crossed over his broad chest and his head tilted to one side. He was watching Javert. Watching Javert in his bed. Making coffee in his kitchen and calling his work to give him the day off.

            “What time is it?” Javert asked. Jean glanced at his watch.

            “Seven-thirty,” he said. “You can sleep longer if you want, I’m sorry if I woke you.”

            Javert shook his head as he sat up again, and swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, standing. “No point, now,” he said. He breathed deeply. “The coffee smells good.”

            “You’ve said that already.”

            Javert glared, and didn’t reply. He walked around the corner to the bathroom door, and was intensely aware of Jean trailing behind him like a watchdog.

            “Don’t worry,” Javert sighed, “I’m not going for the gun, and I won’t cut my wrists with a razor or anything.”

            He caught a glimpse of Jean’s scowl before he shut the bathroom door firmly behind him.

 

            It wasn’t a lie – he _wasn’t_ going to try again, not in the light of day and under Jean Valjean's eye – but as soon as the door was shut, Javert let out a long, painful breath, and stepped forward, leaning over the sink with hunched shoulders and fingers clutching at the porcelain. He squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed hard, and stayed like that for a few minutes until he felt he could feasibly face Jean again. He used the toilet, washed his face, and brushed out his hair, flattening it and tying it back before heading back out into the flat. Jean was leaning on the kitchen counter, plain white mug in one hand and phone in the other. He met Javert’s narrowing eyes and smiled blandly.

            “Just telling Cosette to open the shop without me,” he explained.

            “Do you intend to stay here all day?” Javert snapped, even as he crossed into the kitchen and pulled a dark blue, faintly decorated mug from the cupboard above Jean’s head.

            “I intend to stay here until I know you won’t try to hurt yourself again,” Jean said, as he ducked out of Javert’s way, and Javert scoffed.

            “Just move in then, why don’t you,” he muttered, pouring out some coffee for himself. Jean frowned.

            “Javert –”

            “No, don’t,” Javert snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”

_“Javert –”_

            “I said I _don’t want to hear it,”_ Javert repeated. “None of your platitudes, none of your reassurances, and don’t you dare give me that _smile_ of yours, as if everything will be fine and you’re just so terribly _sad_ for me –”

            He realised he was rambling, and cut himself off. His hands flexed against his mug, and he stared at the counter.

            “You’ve gotten me out of one day of work,” he growled, “but what the hell am I supposed to do after that? Hm?” He looked over, meeting Jean’s soft eyes with a glare of his own. “How am I supposed to work like this?”

            “Like what?” Jean asked. “Suicidal?”

            Javert sucked a breath in between his teeth, and his mug hit the counter with a _crack!_ He turned to Valjean.

            “You don’t have any idea what you’ve done, do you?” he hissed. “How am I meant to keep the peace with this _doubt_ always on me? How am I meant to serve justice when every arrest will come with your voice in my head telling me to be _lenient?_ How can I keep on telling myself I’ve been strong, and dutiful, and good, when I couldn’t even arrest you when I had the chance?!”

            Jean’s mug had joined Javert’s on the counter, and he was looking up at Javert with infinite regret in his eyes. And then he smiled. Javert felt something like terror in his chest.

            “Oh, Inspector Javert,” Jean said – “I think you’ll be the finest officer of them all.”

            Javert was shaking his head. “I don’t understand –” he stammered, stepping back. “How can you be so – I don’t _understand!”_

            “Javert –” Jean was reaching for him now, his hands held out, placating and inviting, and where the night before he’d been horrified at the very thought, now those hands seemed to extend to him not an insult or invasion, not pity, but a moment of solace. Jean had called for him, and Javert would answer.

            It was the easiest thing in the world, merely to step forward into those wide-open arms, and let Jean’s strong, broad chest hold him up. Jean’s arms folded around him, and Javert buried his face in his shoulder like a cushion, fingers clutching at his own heart and waist as he choked on the sobs in his throat. There were tears stinging his eyes, and his thoughts were scattered and meaningless, and Jean was hushing him, soothing him, and holding him up with effortless strength. Javert stayed there until the sobbing in his throat retreated again to his chest; then he pulled himself up just a fraction, and raised his chin to the crest of Jean’s shoulder.

            “I think you should leave,” he said. One of Jean’s broad, rough hands touched the back of his head, and he craned his neck to look at Javert’s face.

            “I’m not sure that’s a good idea –”

            “Please just leave,” Javert sighed. “I won’t try to kill myself again.”

            “Is that a promise?”

            They were both straightening now, pulling away from each other, and Jean’s hand slipped from the back of Javert’s head to his shoulder. Javert shuddered.

            “I promise,” he said. It made him feel sick.

            Jean watched him closely. “Javert…” he said – but the sentence went nowhere. His mouth was tight.

            His hand slipped away entirely.

            “Where’s your phone?”

            Javert frowned.

            “Trouser pocket,” he answered, shocked into instinctual obedience. “Why?”

            Jean was already halfway across the room, fumbling in the washing basket. “I’m giving you my number,” he said, returning with Javert’s phone in his hand. “You can text or call me at any time – I mean it, _any time_ – if you think you might want to hurt yourself.”

            He handed over the phone, and Javert automatically unlocked it, and opened his contacts. He felt numb.

            “Why?” he asked again, passing back the phone. Jean’s smile was sad.

            “Is there anyone else you could go to?” he said, and focused on typing. “It may be hard to believe,” he said, mostly to the phone, “but I’ve been in the same place. A long time ago. I think I have some idea what you might be…” He finished typing, and handed back the phone. Javert stared at the screen, where ‘Jean’ was written above a mobile number. “Now, your number?”

            Jean’s own phone was in his hand, poised and ready. Javert’s voice stuck in his throat, lumpy and horrible, and he swallowed around it, bowing his head and holding out his hand. Jean passed over the phone, and Javert typed in his number and handed it back as quickly as possible.

            “You could call a therapist or hospital, if you prefer,” Jean was saying, “but if you just need… I don’t know. Company, or someone to talk to. I can be here.”

            “Why?” Javert asked once again, forcing the word through his tight, clogged throat. Concern creased in Jean’s brow now.

            “I don’t want to see you get hurt,” he said. “Not if I can help it.”

            Javert let out a weak bark of laughter. “It’s your fault, you know,” he said, thickly. “I could’ve gone on thinking I was being just and lawful and not had to deal with you and your _mercy,_ and…”

            He trailed off. It wasn’t worth the argument anymore. The thought of the person he’d been only days ago filled him with horror and disgust, even as the same disgust for his inability to do his duty properly still lingered. He needed to think.

            “I think you should go,” he repeated, finally. Jean’s hand fell upon his arm, squeezed, and fell away.

            “Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked. Javert thought back on the previous night’s lie, and determined to make up for it.

            “Yes.”

 

            His phone pinged that afternoon while he stirred the flavouring into a packet of two-minute noodles and ignored the mess he’d made of the files on his desk, now strewn across the floor. He picked the phone up from the counter with a fumbling, automatic movement, and unlocked it, opening the text.

 

_From: Jean_

_7:48pm, 7 May_

_How are you holding up?_

 

            Javert stared at the phone for a good thirty seconds before he managed to startle his fingers into movement. He locked the phone and went back to his noodles. A minute later, as he poured some of the broth into the sink, he looked back at the phone; huffed to himself; and stalked towards it. Valjean would no doubt jump to extreme conclusions and bother him more if he didn’t reply.

 

_To: Jean_

_7:50pm, 7 May_

_Still alive_

 

            When, ten minutes later, it seemed clear that there would be no response, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  

* * *

 

 

            Javert phoned into work that evening, and requested the rest of the week – three days – off. He tried not to let his voice stick in his throat, and mostly succeeded. Work was all he’d ever had, and all he still had, but he couldn’t possibly contemplate what he was supposed to do when he got there: how he was meant to wear his uniform and walk the streets with the overwhelming shame of his failure dragging at his shoulders and knees; how he was supposed to write simple facts into forms when even those simple facts now eluded him. Staying in his little flat, alone and aimless, however, was almost worse than pretending he could still work.

            In the morning, he logged onto the force’s intranet from home, and sought out the correct forms for requests for leave and special consideration. He filled them out, formally requesting those three days unpaid leave, then a further week of duty restricted to his desk. It would be better than languishing at home, but not so bad as having to go out and see the people he’d failed, make orders and arrests he would be forced to second-guess. He spent two hours methodically working through the mess he’d made on the floor. At ten o’clock, he put on jeans and sneakers, and a soft, dark jumper over his t-shirt, and stuffed his backpack with wallet and phone, a stack of papers, and his belt and firearm.

            He walked to Petersham Station, and fifteen minutes later, he was crossing the intersection from Newtown Station to Australia Street. He passed the Neighbourhood Centre, and marched into the station house with a dignity that had never felt quite so false. The receptionist looked surprised to see him, but he explained his purpose, and she nodded at him to pass.

            He dropped the forms off with his superintendent, who frowned at him like he’d marched in and announced his resignation (which, he supposed, he had very much tried to do). Then he went back down to his own office, and shut the door behind him, and released a terrible breath.

            It was as it always had been: small, cluttered, with only a desk, a small sofa, and an array of filing cabinets and papers strewn about. Javert licked his lips, and dropped his backpack on his desk, zipping it open and pulling out the paraphernalia he’d brought. His belt and gun went into their usual desk drawer; then he grasped the files, and brought them out again into the light of day.

            There were so many cases. So many people he’d probably wronged. What good would it do now to go through them? But then, that was cowardice, to shirk his duty just because it seemed overwhelming. He slipped the files from home into his in-tray, and marched to the nearest cabinet.

            He’d always preferred paper filing. The physicality of it was reassuring. The thicker the file, the more work it had been; the slimmer, the simpler, the quicker, the more efficient. Holding the weight of crime scene photographs, interview transcripts, background checks, warrants, forms, and head shots, was a comforting feeling: the heft of good work, duty fulfilled, order re-established through effort and determination. Now, as he pulled out the first handful of files from the first drawer of the first cabinet, he hesitated, feeling the weight of all those cases start to strain and bear down on him like a million eyes, judging him and finding him unworthy.

            He crushed his eyes shut, and shook himself to try to rid himself of the sensation. It partly worked.

            He organised his files by date, grouped by year and based on when the case was handed to or picked up by him. The New Year period, for him, had always been one of late nights double-checking that digitisation and filing were up to standard, ensuring easy referencing in the future. The eight files in his hand were the ones immediately prior to the stack he’d returned: two arrests based on non-compliance, three petty assault charges, an assault and battery on King Street in broad daylight, and two charges of sexual assault. There was a murder case he left behind which he remembered as convoluted, confusing, and twisted in more ways than one. He recalled the comforting weight of it in his hands as he lifted it into the top drawer; that the culprit had screamed and screamed at him that she’d done it to protect her family; and that he’d ignored her, said that murder was murder, and sent her to court without a thought for whether legal integrity was the same as moral justice. He shivered at the thought, and at his own weakness, and left the file behind.

            The stack in his hand went into his bag, and he zipped it up, slung it over his shoulder, and marched back out of the station. He gave a nod and a grunt to the receptionist (what was her _name?_ ), and stepped back onto the street.

            Javert remembered his promise to Valjean.

            With a fortifying breath at the curb, he crossed the street, and stalked into Madeleine’s. It was only scarcely occupied at that time of day, by early lunchers or late breakfasters, and people having brunch and coffee. Jean was not behind the counter, nor was Cosette; but Javert recognised the other Thénardier daughter, Azelma; and Jehan, one of Cosette’s group, in their usual get-up of eye-wateringly gaudy prints underneath the standard brown apron. Azelma very definitely met his eye as he approached and hesitated at the counter.

 _‘I can read lips, you know,’_ she signed to him. He felt his shoulders deflate.

 _‘I don’t know words for coffee,’_ he replied, then, with his voice: “Macchiato, please.” His stomach growled at him. “And, uh, one of these –” He leaned back, and pointed at random to some exploding, muffin-like confection in one of the glass-fronted cases.

            Azelma looked at him, with half a smile and half a frown in place. _‘It’s banana and cinnamon,’_ she signed. _‘JP made them.’_

            If Javert was confused, her nod backwards at the contemplative mess of pastels and fluorescent shoes at the machines was enough of an explanation. He handed over a five dollar note, and got twenty-five cents back in change; Jean’s serial under-charging would never cease to distress him. Before he could lose his nerve, and Azelma could turn away, Javert frantically shoved his change into his pocket and raised his hands again.

_‘Is – J-E-A-N here?’_

            Azelma nodded, and turned away. Javert took it as a dismissal; but he saw her nudge Jehan as he left, and sign to them something that looked like a combination of “white” and “beard”. Javert stifled a scoffing laugh at that. Jehan disappeared into the back room, and Azelma took over the machines, as Javert took an empty seat near the window, disappointed that the back corner table had been taken over by what looked like a gaggle of confused maths students.

            A minute later, he looked up to see Jean approaching, with Javert’s coffee in one hand, and a tupperware container of cupcakes in the other, topped with the muffin he’d ordered on a plate. Javert’s face fell.

            “What’s this?”

            Jean sat across from him, smiling thinly. “It’s a gift for you,” he said. “In case you don’t feel up to cooking.”

            The coffee and muffin were slid across to him, but behind them still loomed that opaque white container, filled to the brim with – was that coloured icing?

            “I can’t subsist on _cupcakes,_ Valjean,” Javert growled, picking up his coffee. His stomach gurgled back in answer, and he scoffed at himself, set the coffee down, and reached for the muffin. He hesitated with it still hovering before his mouth. “Should I be wary of this?”

            Jean sent an admonitory, sideways look at him. “I would never sell laced goods to customers, Inspector.”

            Javert snorted, and bit into the muffin. It was fluffy, and sweet without being cloying, touched with the spice which elevated it from blandness. He refused to look impressed. “Not that Jehan would ever bake marijuana into anything,” he said through his mouthful. He bit again before he’d barely swallowed. Jean was watching him with deepening creases around his eyes.

            “Javert,” he said, “have you been eating?”

            He rolled his eyes as expansively as he could. _“Yes,”_ he drawled, as well as he could between a mouthful of banana chips and crumbs. He swallowed. “I accidentally skipped breakfast this morning, that’s all.” In response to Jean’s continuing stare, he added: “I was _working._ It happens all the time.”

            “What were you working on?” Jean asked; and Javert felt something cold drip into his chest. He held the muffin, frozen, before him.

            “Nothing.”

            Jean’s frown only increased, and he started to speak when Javert’s eyes fell shut and he uttered a very firm, _“Please,”_ which cut Jean off with pleasant efficiency, despite the struggle. Jean sighed, and looked at his hands on the table; then he reached for the box of cupcakes and pushed them a little closer over the table to Javert.

            “They’re just plain sponge, I’m afraid,” he said, “nothing fancy. The icing is buttercream and a bit of food dye. I hope you like them.”

            Javert was eating again, and narrowed his eyes over his chewing at Jean. After a moment, he swallowed enough to speak, and said, very carefully, “They’ll be crushed in my bag on the way home.”

            Jean cocked his head a little further to the side.

            “How did you get here?” he said. “I assume your bike’s still at…”

            “At Circular Quay, yes,” Javert finished for him, irritated at the man’s care. He wasn’t made of fine china. “I should go and pick it up in the next few days.”

            “There’s no need,” Jean said, too mild to be sincerely disinterested. “I can take a taxi and bring it back to your house for you.”

            “You don’t have to do that,” Javert snapped.

            “It’s the least I could do,” Jean countered, and Javert dropped his muffin back onto its plate.

            “The least you could do is _nothing,”_ he pushed through curled lips. “The least you could do is leave me alone, not bake cupcakes and offer to pick up my bike and –” He cut himself off, snapping shut his mouth, and took a breath, trying not to see the hurt in Jean’s dark eyes. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, very precisely. “I can pick it up. I’ll be fine.”

            Jean watched him for a long moment.

            “I’m only concerned for you, Inspector.”

            Javert felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “I will be _fine.”_

            Jean’s eyebrows shot up, his hands rose, palms forward, and he sat back in his chair. It was the consummate gesture of defeat, so why did Javert feel like he’d lost something?

            “All right,” Jean said softly, “all right. It’s up to you, Javert.”

            Javert picked up his coffee, and scowled into the little glass.

            “Thank you,” he muttered thickly, and took as deep a sip as he could without scalding something. Jean chatted with him, absently, for ten minutes while he finished, then stood when Javert stood, looking up at him with a long and searching gaze.

            “Will I see you tomorrow?” he said, and Javert huffed out a breath through his nose.

            “If you don’t, it’ll only be because I’m busy with work,” he snapped out, and swallowed over the guilt trapped in his throat as he shouldered his bag. He looked down at the container of cupcakes, and after a moment, snatched them up. “Thank you,” he muttered; and was about to flee, when Jean held out his hand between them, resolute and undeniable. Javert stared at it – calloused, dark, and blunt, worn around the edges, like a worker’s or a prisoner’s. A convict’s hand; but far, far too warm for a criminal’s. Javert feared that hand more than ever.

            He shifted the cupcakes to one arm, and shook Jean’s hand, rough palm to rough palm. The smile that blossomed over Jean’s face was small, but strong, stronger by far than the banked muscle in his chest and thighs or the force of his magisterial voice when he had no other recourse. Javert feared that smile, too. It looked like something that might try to keep him where he had no right to stay.

            He nodded, once, let go of Jean’s hand, and left the shop. The train ride back to Petersham was tedious, and he needed to retrieve his bike.

            There were fifteen cupcakes crammed into tupperware in his lap.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_May 8_

_Robin Grantaire,_ _Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac,_ _Jiemba_ _Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        right, so i know we said this chat was gonna be abandoned, but it seemed like the best place to talk about this?

                        wednesday night, gav calls me up at like midnight asking for dad to go pick up javert at cremorne point wharf? and i have no idea what happened, but dad had to spend the night at javert’s, gav won’t say a thing about it to me, only that it’s not his business, and dad’s acting?? really weird?????

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yeah we did say that, because turns out javert’s an arse who likes to yell threats at good people and loses all respect for them just because they were once in prison :\

                        wait what

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        he’s been stress baking?? last time he did that was during my hsc, do you have any idea how many cookies and cupcakes i ate that year, i swear i spent the entire time high on sugar

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        your dad /stress bakes/ are you kidding me

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        there was a big container of cupcakes this morning when i left for uni, next thing i know i get back in the afternoon and they’re gone, and all dad’ll say is that he gave them to javert who’s “””not feeling well””” except since when have we cared about how javert is feeling….. since he decided he hated us and everything we stood for……………

                        like, apparently we decided to be civil with him, that i understand, sell him some coffee and not hold grudges, w/e, that i get

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yeah that i can believe

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        but this?? is so weird?????

                        where did the cupcakes go, did javert come into the shop today, did dad take them over to him, has javert even been at WORK i don’t think i’ve seen him, what the heck is going on

                        apparently javert arrested peter a few days ago, i think that was also wednesday

                        and javert was in here wednesday night working according to zelma, i think he fell asleep, i dunno, i had to go study

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        d’you think maybe they’ve made up???

                        has javert realised he was wrong

                        except that doesn’t sound likely

                        :\

                        also which peter is this

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        peter montparnasse, y’know, eponine’s friend? worked with her dad sometimes? well-dressed and super creepy?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ooohhh yep i know the guy

                        whoa so he finally got arrested did he, wow

                        what for

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        DAD SAID HE TRIED TO ATTACK JAVERT?? i dunno he got me to look after the shop for a bit

                        maybe javert got injured???

                        what is going on

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        i have no idea, but i’m definitely going to talk to gav about it

 

                        […]

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        Gav came to my house that night?? he said he ran into javert and jean on the ferry, but he didn’t say any more, I thought he was just being a shit

                        ????????????

 

                        […]

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        okay so gav says, and i quote:

                        “it’s seriously not my business and not urs, but apparently javert isn’t made of stone”

                        that’s it that’s all he’d tell me wtf

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        oh my gosh, is javert okay??

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        i agree with gav, i really don’t think it’s our place to try to find out

                        we know him and your dad have a weird history, but if he’s decided to trust jean with something important, we shouldn’t be snooping around for gossip about it

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        despite the original intent of this chat group

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        remember, he’s a police officer, we’re just a bunch of kids who know the owner of the cafe he goes to all the time

                        maybe we should leave it be 

 

* * *

 

 

            Late the next night, Javert came to himself on the floor of his kitchen, with his back to the corner of the counter and his arms still splayed, fingers clutching at the counter edge, and his legs tense and twisted in front of him. Papers again were strewn across the floor, from the window to the kitchen and nearly to the front door, spilling over onto the desk and mattress, even tossed here and there on the kitchen counter. He wasn’t certain anymore of which case was which, or what photos belonged to what crime, whose bloodied arm that was, whose broken window. Five of his fingers were tacky with old blood from paper cuts he’d obtained hours earlier, his hair was a tangled mess, and someone was knocking on his door.

 _“Javert?”_ came a muffled, kind, worried voice. Javert realised in hindsight that the knocking had been going on for some time. He hadn’t heard the buzzer go off. _“Javert are you in there?”_

            He didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay where he was staring at this mess that used to be his tidy, orderly life, unable to fix it, unable utterly to find solutions because _what if, what if what if…_ He’d gotten through the non-compliance and petty assault cases by the time he’d finished his late lunch – they were simple enough, even his scrambled brain and heart could see that the punishments were not too severe, the transgressions not overly-sympathetic – but then the assault and battery had come before him, and he’d taken one look at the young man’s injuries and the other’s, searched too hard through the interviews, trying to find proper motives, proper meanings, until he’d tossed the file over his shoulder and come to –

            His phone started to ring, shrieking at him from the desk. It was far too far away. There were mountains between him and it, in those papers and files which he could not cross.

            They had deserved better from him. They had deserved more.

            His phone rang out, and he heard Jean’s fist against his door again, louder, harder, more insistent this time.

_“Javert, open up! Are you all right? Please, open the door!”_

            He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to move. But Jean would probably break the door down before he let the matter go.

            With an almighty, unbelievable effort, Javert tensed the muscles in his arms, in his legs, in his hands, shoulders, back, and core, around his knees and ankles, and every finger; and heaved himself back to his feet. Jean’s fist was still pounding on the door, his voice, all warped and damped by the wood, still shouting. Javert pushed himself out of the kitchenette, and towards the door.

 _“Javert, if something’s happened, please you_ need to let me –”

            Jean cut himself off as Javert pulled open the door and glared down at him with as much weary wrath as he could. It was very little, but still Jean looked afraid. He stepped into the flat, shut the door behind him without looking, and crowded up to Javert, the backs of his fingers going to Javert’s brow, though he flinched away.

            “Javert,” Jean said yet again, “someone let me in the front door when I started shouting, what –”

            He trailed off, and Javert watched as he noticed the mess in the rest of the flat, his eyes going wide and his cheeks slack, mouth dropping open a little further. He looked back to Javert.

            “What happened?”

            Javert didn’t answer. He had caught sight of another tupperware container under Jean’s left arm, and his blood was starting to simmer.

            “What is that?” he asked, each word forming carefully and precisely on his tongue and teeth. Jean glanced down at the box as if he’d forgotten it was there.

            “Oh,” he muttered, “I made caramel slice – but Javert, what…”

            He was stepping away now, around Javert and into the little kitchen, avoiding stray papers and dropping the caramel slice on the counter behind him as he passed.

            “Please don’t look at it,” Javert blurted out, through gritted teeth, as he started forward, an abrupt, aborted movement. “It’s nothing, it doesn’t matter.”

            Jean turned back to him. “Why didn’t you open the door?”

            “I _did_ open the door.”

            “Not for five whole minutes, no. You didn’t even let me into the building, I could see your light was on.”

            Javert rolled his eyes. “I can’t be expected to let in every idle visitor when I’m in the middle of important –”

            He was getting sick of having to interrupt and cut himself off so much. It needed to stop. And Jean was looking at him with such patient, liquid eyes that he had to capitulate. He swallowed, and clasped his hands behind his back to stop his fingers from twitching. Instinctively, his shoulders straightened, and he pulled himself up a little, as if he were giving a report to the superintendent.

            “I brought some files from my office yesterday, intending to go through them looking for inconsistencies and injustices caused by my – old habits,” he said, flat and to the point, looking at the mess on the floor rather than at Valjean. “It proved harder than I expected. I think I had a panic attack.”

            Jean’s eyes had followed Javert’s to the floor, but he looked back at those last words, horror in his sloping brows and open mouth.

            “Javert,” he breathed – “are you all right?”

            It was perhaps the most sincere way such a question had ever been asked. Javert loathed it.

            “I’m fine,” he gritted out, _“clearly._ Just – a lot to clean up. Again.”

            “Again?” Jean echoed, and Javert could have kicked himself.

            “It doesn’t matter,” he snapped. “It wasn’t like this.”

            There was moment of silence, in which Javert very studiously glared at the room rather than at the man beside him. Then there was a wide, rough hand on his arm, palm to skin, and it was so unexpected and so unusual that he felt himself flinch away before he could even think about it. Jean’s hand shot away from him – but _oh, oh,_ that had been nice. Warm, calm skin when he’d been numb-toed and goosebumped most of the day, the heater off in deference to the bills, and when he’d found the cold kitchen counter at his back all of a sudden, as his breath seared its way haphazard past his throat without his consent or control. Jean was backing away, and Javert would have none of it. He had asked this same man to hand him a gun two nights before; he could ask for this.

            “I–I didn’t mean not to touch me,” he stammered, “you just startled me.”

            Jean tilted his head away, watching him askance. His eyes darted, down and up; and he reached out again, and his rough palm fell again on Javert’s bare arm just above the elbow, warm and dry and very real, flesh and blood and humanity thrumming beneath the skin. Javert hummed, a short, low sound, and tried to stop his teeth from chattering.

            “What time is it?” he asked.

            Jean blinked, and glanced at his watch.

            “Quarter to eleven,” he answered. Javert contemplated this, and nodded.

            “I should sleep.”

            “Yes, Javert,” Jean sighed, “I think you should. You look exhausted.”

            Javert nodded again.

            “I, um…”

            Jean’s hand moved up closer to his shoulder, over the sleeve of his shirt. “This way,” he said, too soft to possibly be real. Javert found himself being steered out of the kitchen, tiptoeing carefully over and between the files and papers on the floor, with intermittent, crackling, crushing sounds, his work trodden underfoot. He supposed the metaphor was apt.

            Then he was sitting on his bed, and telling Jean not to look at the files, they were confidential; and not to try to clean them, that was Javert’s job, and besides, he wouldn’t know what went with what; and thank you for the caramel slice, he supposed, though that was entirely unnecessary; and could he please leave now?

            Javert didn’t bother to switch on the lamp at his bedside. There was still dried blood on his hands. He let Jean find his own way out, turning off the lights as he went.

            This absurd dreamland where Jean Valjean kept sending him to bed was starting to grate on him.

 

            He spent his Sunday cleaning his flat, putting the files back together, and going back over the ones he’d stopped at, pausing only to pick up his bike before lunch. He took two files with him on the bus and jotted down brief notes for follow-ups and better procedure in the future, and stopped in the CBD to leave the cupcakes and slices with the homeless people he passed. He thought Jean would be pleased by that.

            Jean showed up at two with an apple pie in a tin and reports of an officer visiting him for his statement on the incident with Montparnasse. Javert was civil with him, accepted the odd gift (piling it on top of the other two, empty boxes), and did not let him in. He went to bed at ten o’clock, with a cleaner flat, a stack of files to be returned, and the anticipation of going back to work hovering over him like a knife.

  

* * *

 

 

            A week of desk duty. He might as well have relegated himself to hell.

 

            Monday was tedium, tempered only by the horror of old cases which he gradually – very gradually – worked his way through. The only real interruption was a phone call at four-thirty, as he was settling down with the last of his most recent incident files, ready for transcribing. He plucked the phone off its hook with absent fingers.

            “Inspector Javert, Newtown Police,” he answered, by rote. The title had once been something to get used to; it had taken him two weeks to stop flinching.

            “Inspector,” came the reply, “this is Superintendent Mattheson, Chief of Staff of the Office of the Commissioner.”

            Javert’s breath froze in his throat. His eyes went wide, and his mouth slack. He quickly reigned himself in, and cleared his throat.

            “Good afternoon, Superintendent,” he said, very carefully flat. “What can I do for you?”

            “The Commissioner received your letter, dated the sixth of May,” said Mattheson, also curiously flat. “He’d like to invite you to a meeting at his office, ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If you return to work that afternoon, you’ll still be paid from nine AM. Does that work for you?”

            Javert’s heart felt shivery in his breast.

            “Yes,” he forced out, breathy, a hurried acquiescence to authority. “Yes, I’ll be there. Ten o’clock, at the Commissioner’s Office.” He pretended for a moment that he had courage, and added: “Might I know what this is concerning?”

            “Your letter,” Mattheson repeated. “From May six. The Commissioner would like to discuss its contents with you.”

            Javert nodded, though the superintendent could not see it. “All right,” he said. “Tell the Commissioner I’ll be happy to obey.”

            “Thank you, Inspector,” Mattheson replied, and it sounded to Javert like a crow of victory. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

            “Thank you, Superintendent Mattheson,” said Javert – and dropped the phone like it had a huntsman on it, fumbling to hang it up.

            He knew precisely how the meeting would go. That night, when he finally finished the last of his work, he avoided Madeleine’s, and tried and failed to sleep soundly. Ten o’clock on Tuesday found him already waiting in the Commissioner’s office, seated across from Superintendent Mattheson’s desk with a face stern with fear as she ignored him. He had been sitting there for five minutes already.

            At 10:02, Commissioner Keith James ushered Javert into his office, and Javert stood, hat in hand, and followed, as if to the gallows. When James sat, Javert remained standing, practically at attention, across the desk from him, holding his hat before him. He was here to face his doom; his failings had finally caught up with him. _Culpam poena premit comes_ indeed.

            James looked up at him, all long, dour face and blue eyes. There was a sort of kindness in his expression which was worlds away from that in Jean Valjean’s.

            “Please, Inspector,” he said, nodding at one of the plush, low chairs opposite him – “sit.”

            Javert stood stock still; wavered; and stepped once forwards, once to the side, and sat. He had ironed his shirt with extra care the night before, and been vigilant on the two train rides to Parramatta that he not crease it with slouching. He folded his hands over his hat in his lap, and sat very straight in his seat.

            “You took four days of leave, didn’t you?” the Commissioner began. “Unpaid.”

            “Yes, sir,” Javert answered. He would not fiddle with his hat. He would not run his hands through his sideburns or hair. He would be still, compliant, complacent, as he always had been in the presence of authority. He would survive this.

            “And now you’ve decided to do a week of desk duty,” James went on. Javert nodded.

            “That’s correct.”

            James was looking at him, direct and hard. “Why?”

            Javert was prepared for this, he had to be.

            “Mental health issues,” he said. “The time off has worked, and I’m easing myself back into my usual duties.”

            “What kind of issues?”

            Javert’s brow creased in the middle, between his wide eyes.

            “It’s a personal matter,” he said, slowly. “I can assure you, Commissioner James, that it will not affect my work beyond the lighter duties I’ve already assigned myself.”

            James nodded, as if satisfied; and from a neat pile of papers at his elbow, drew an envelope, from which he pulled a small bundle of familiar papers.

            “Your letter took a couple of days to reach me,” he said, unfolding the papers which Javert recognised with a heavy, twisting sensation of guilt in his chest. “I was surprised to receive a handwritten note from none other than the remarkable Inspector Javert,” James continued, terribly conversational, eyes sliding back and forth between Javert and the papers he now shuffled and perused in his hands. “Renowned for his dedication, his quick rise through the ranks, his _multiple_ awards and commendations, though he’d never tell you about them…”

            James’ expression was one of wry mirth, which Javert could not trust.

            “The contents came as a shock, to say the least.”

            James’ hands were suddenly very still, his eyes falling very finally upon Javert. Nothing about him moved, no blush or twitch reached his white cheeks; until he raised the little bundle in one hand, elbow on the table, nose jutting forward, and said:

            “What is this, Inspector Javert?”

            Javert sat still, staring at the incriminating papers in the Commissioner’s hand. He cleared his throat.

            “Those are – some notes, Commissioner James, which I propose would improve the –” He coughed again. “The efficiency and – humanity of the prison system and the police force. Sir.”

            James looked down, back at the papers in his hand, peering at each page in turn.

            “What it looks like to me,” he said, far, far too calmly, “is insubordination. A lack of respect for the service and your superiors.” He looked back at Javert, stern, piercing, undeniable. “Words like this could weaken the force in the eyes of the public and ourselves, Javert. Words like this could get you fired.”

            Javert swallowed.

            “I know, sir. I still believe that –”

            “What you _believe_ is none of my concern,” James cut him off. “The laws are there for a reason, and the rules are in place to keep in order the peace and safety of our society –”

            “I beg your pardon, sir,” Javert rushed out, “but if you’d read my letter properly you’d know that half the _problem_ is that those rules aren’t followed.” He was almost definitely trembling. “Police officers abusing their power in shows of violence and fear does nothing to protect anyone’s safety –”

            James was talking over him again, and he quickly fell silent against the onslaught. “The rules and the powers they afford members of the police force are _there for a reason,_ Inspector,” he was saying, all drawling vowels and a voice raised, but not shouting. “If our officers are not always acting in line, well, we have to weigh the benefits with the costs. A little fear isn’t a bad thing, Javert –”

            “Commissioner James,” Javert snapped, “I have to disagree –”

            But he was being bowled over again, talked away, drowned out. “– and you of all people, Inspector, should know that over-enthusiasm is not a crime, but a mark of an officer’s sense of duty!”

            Javert fell silent. He realised his mouth was open, and pressed it shut.

            Well, he’d hit the nail on the head, hadn’t he? What sort of ungrateful, arrogant hypocrite was Javert, to condemn his own vices only in others, vices stemming from what he viewed as his virtue? What right had he to disavow what he himself had been guilty of? Who was he to speak against a superior who knew better, worked harder, saw more, than him?

            This was the old Javert – _Before_ Javert – thinking; but he could no more stop it than he could move the stars from their constellations.

            The Commissioner straightened in his chair, rolling his shoulders back and lowering the letter in his hand.

            “You’re a good police officer, Javert,” he said, low and unkind. “It would be a shame for the force to lose you.”

            Javert refused to react. He had known this was coming, it was what he had tried to do; why should he be shocked or afraid of it? It was only what he deserved.

            “John Javert,” James suddenly said, and Javert only just stopped himself from rearing back in his seat. “That’s your full name, isn’t it? You don’t use it much, from what I hear.”

            He was obviously expecting a reply. Javert cleared his throat, and licked his lips.

            “I don’t like my first name,” he said. “It was given to me by default.”

            “You grew up on a mission, didn’t you?”

            Javert’s jaw worked for a moment, mouth closed, silent.

            “Yes.”

            “And here you are, forty years later,” said James coolly, “an Inspector of the New South Wales Police Force. Not a bad progression.”

            “I am as proud of my achievements as they deserve,” Javert mumbled, eyes lowered, “and thankful for the opportunities I was given.”

            James dropped the letter onto the desk between them.

            “Clearly not.”

            Javert felt as if his stomach had dropped away into nothing, and his heart been wrenched out through his sternum. These were words he had not heard – not explicitly – for many years, and still they ached with the same rawness as when the other probies had teased him about his accent, called him ‘abo’, shot untrusting looks at him across examination rooms. He was grateful – he had always been grateful – for he had very much to be grateful for; and if he were not grateful, he would be taking what was not rightfully his.

            Commissioner James sat back in his chair.

            “Go back to work, Javert,” he sighed. “If you repeat these views in public, or within hearing of other police officers, I’ll be forced to resign you. You’re dismissed.”

            His fingers, clammy and tremulous, were clasped too tightly around the brim of his hat. He tried to wipe his palms on his knees as he pushed himself to his feet, but it did nothing to help, only made him more awkward in the movement. Standing, he bowed his head, and said, “Thank you, Commissioner.”

            With his hat still in his hands, he left the office; descended the floors; went out onto the street. He crossed the concrete porch, and marched down the street towards the station. It took him an hour to get to Newtown, and although he was hungry, he didn’t stop at Madeleine’s for lunch. They would know, after all, if he did not return straight to work.

            He skipped the meal and sat at his desk, meticulously and methodically working through the new reports and investigations handed to him, facing old ones in between. He thought of Jean – only Jean – and not Superintendent Mattheson, or Commissioner James, or even Inspector Javert, as he worked. It seemed to him to be the only way to act justly; for, in himself, he would never be truly just.

 

            Javert went home; slept; woke; went to work. He went to Madeleine’s for coffee, and was civil with Jean Fauchelevent, who in turn restrained his cloying concern in favour of a calm and gentle earnestness which became him all too well; and if Cosette looked at him oddly over the coffee she handed him at lunch on Wednesday, he could at least be content in the knowledge that she didn’t confront him outright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene of Gavroche interrupting Javert's suicide was first thought of and written (from a different perspective) by my friend Katie, so like. Phwoar, kudos to her.
> 
>  _"Culpam poena premit comes"_ is the motto of the NSW Police Force, and is Latin for "punishment follows closely on the guilty". 64 Crystal Street is a [real address](https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/64+Crystal+St,+Petersham+NSW+2049/@-33.8914921,151.1554067,16.62z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x6b12b016abd61b07:0x8067214e61291e0), but I've never been inside the building, and I'm sure it's got flats much bigger than Javert's.
> 
> I have no idea how clear this is to non-Australians, but Javert is a child of the [stolen generation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations). I, however, am very much a white Australian, and take full responsibility for any errors or misrepresentations of his experiences, which were written with the internalised racism and classism of the novel at least as much in mind as actual Aboriginal experiences.
> 
> Finally, Commissioner Keith James is in no way based on the current Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, about whom I know basically nothing. [shrugs]


	3. Chapter 3

            The summons to court for the trial of Peter Montparnasse came as a shock when Javert slit the letter open in his kitchen. In his defence, he had been rather distracted in the previous weeks. He phoned into work the next morning to arrange to have the day off, and dug through his slim wardrobe for the only suit he owned.

            It was difficult for him to lie at the best of times; to do so on the witness stand was impossible. But as he stood in the box and looked out to where Montparnasse sat – lounging about with all the smoothness of a cat but with one finger tapping, like the twitching of the cat’s tail – Javert realised that he did not have to lie at all. His statement would be truthful, just, and merciful, and there did not have to be a contradiction between those things.

            “Yes, the defendant tried to attack me with that knife.”

            “I can’t say for certain whether or not he intended to kill me.”

            “It was Mister Fauchelevent’s intervention which stopped the defendant from hurting me.”

            “I would imagine it had something to do with the five previous times I’ve arrested or tried to arrest the defendant, but that’s only conjecture.”

            “No, I would not recommend a prison sentence.”

            “I would not recommend a prison sentence.”

            “I would not recommend a prison sentence.”

            Eventually, he was let go. The judge gave him permission to leave, and he stalked out through the back ways of the court, passing Jean – waiting to give his own evidence – with a lowered gaze. He went back to work, sorting out the details of an ice manufacturing ring he and Sergeant Whicher were investigating. When evening came, he finished reviewing the evidence given the day before by four different people arrested for possession, and packed up his things, walking on unusually heavy feet across the road to Madeleine’s.

            Jean greeted him with a smile, hurrying around from where he had been refilling jars of sugar. “Seventy-two hours’ community service and a rehabilitation program,” he said, without preamble, as he came to a halt in front of Javert near the door, wavering on the spot as if in hesitation. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

            There was an odd fluttering in Javert’s chest as of a breath half-taken: a suspended kind of feeling, which didn’t bode ill, exactly, but neither did it inspire him with joy. Montparnasse deserved punishment, Montparnasse deserved mercy; the scales tipped back and forth, never resting. He was as certain and uncertain of both conclusions.

            “Yes,” he eventually said. At that, Jean’s smile broadened, and his shoulders relaxed even though they had not looked tense before, and the fluttering in Javert’s chest expanded, rising all at once through his loosening limbs. He breathed deep to expel it. “I need coffee.”

            Jean sighed at him, turning and heading towards the end of the counter with Javert at his heels. “It’s a wonder you get any sleep at all,” he said, “what with the amount of caffeine you drink this late in the day.”

            “I don’t need to sleep,” Javert retorted, remaining on his side of the counter as Jean moved behind it, “I need to work.”

            Jean levelled a long-suffering glare at him, but didn’t argue. “Espresso?”

            “Macchiato, please.”

            Javert handed his money around the side of the coffee machines, took his change, and wove between the tables to find a seat, avoiding where Cosette and Éponine sat with their heads together as if in conspiracy. All too soon, a little cup was being deposited before him, and Jean’s slow, quiet voice sounded at Javert’s side.

            “I think she’s falling in love,” he said, and Javert glanced up as he raised his spoon, a furrow between his brows.

            “With Éponine?”

            Jean sighed, smiling and sad. “Soon she’ll have no love left to give me at all.”

            Javert snorted so loudly that a customer two tables away looked up in consternation. Jean stared at him.

            “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous,” Javert scoffed, scraping at the foam on his coffee with the teaspoon. “That girl will never stop loving you with everything she has.”

            Jean was shaking his head. “No, Javert,” he murmured, “she has Marius, and now Éponine, and all of her younger friends… She won’t need me.”

            The coffee tasted unusually sour in Javert’s mouth.

            “You’re _being,”_ he sneered, _“ridiculous.”_

            Jean looked down at him with a creasing expression of pity. “You’re not a father, Javert,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

            Before Javert could retort, Jean had turned and walked back to the counter to finish with the sugar. Javert pressed his curling lips together over the distaste on his tongue, and finished his coffee with his chin almost hidden in his collar. When he left a few minutes later, he commended Jean on his work in court that morning, and called out a goodbye to Cosette, whose paisley-bedecked head shot up so she could wave a confused but smiling farewell back at him.

            Javert glared at Jean, and, before he turned away, growled, “She even gives _me_ the time of day.”

  

* * *

 

 

            It was Enjolras’ idea to have Monday catch-ups at Madeleine’s after finding out it was easier for Joly to make it to Newtown rather than uni. The entirety of their little group was always invited, and though they rarely had all of them together at once, Enjolras enjoyed having the weekly opportunity to spend time with a few friends in a setting that was totally divorced from the activism of the queerspace. It was a different few friends every week, but that only added to the experience.

            “It’s not that I want them to _stop having feelings,”_ he was saying to Combeferre one Monday over muffins, _“_ but they need to learn how not to make those feelings _cloy,_ you know what I mean? It’s uncomfortable, it’s embarrassing, I don’t feel like I can be their friend when they’re –”

            “Ooh, chatting about emotional inefficiency. Should my ears be burning?” Enjolras fell immediately silent as Grantaire plopped themself down in the chair opposite, already leaning on Combeferre’s arm. “I think he’s onto me,” they stage-whispered in Combeferre’s ear, rewarded with a wry expression of disapproval from Combeferre, and a rather more blatant one from Enjolras.

            “Have you been drinking?” Joly asked from Grantaire’s left, and they rose from Combeferre’s shoulder to draw themself up and puff out their chest, looking down their slightly-crooked nose at Joly.

 _“No,”_ they drawled, “if that pleases you, Doctor McCoy. I was, in fact, up all night helping my little sister study for HSC English. I’ve had four cups of coffee so far today.”

            Joly’s eyes went wide. _“Robin,”_ they said slowly, “it’s not even noon yet.”

            Picking up Combeferre’s nearly-empty cappuccino, Grantaire winked, and raised the cup in a toast. “Gotta die of something,” they quipped, and downed the rest of the drink in one. “Sorry ’Ferre,” they added as they replaced the cup, “I’ll buy you another.”

            “Don’t bother,” Combeferre sighed, “I’ve seen the error of my ways. I’ll never drink coffee again, if it’ll turn me into you right now.”

            “You always say the nicest things,” Grantaire crooned, and made a kissy-face at Combeferre’s shoulder, making him snort with laughter as he started to stack the empty cups and saucers on the table. Enjolras looked like he was restraining a frown as he joined in the clean-up, and Grantaire, seeing his expression, baulked momentarily before shaking themself and tapping the corner of Joly’s chair with their foot.

            “Oh hey Bones,” they said, “did you get that Lemsip I left for you in the queerspace last week?”

            “Yeah, thanks R,” Joly said with a smile. “I’m still being careful, but it helped with the cold symptoms at least. I made it to those lectures I was gonna miss.”

            Grantaire, grinning so that their cheeks scrunched up and their eyes nearly closed, blew a kiss around the table. “Always happy to get rid of some of the exorbitant store of pharmaceutical goods in the Grantaire household,” they said, then turned abruptly to the table at large. “D’you think Leblanc’d give me a free coffee if I said I was addicted?”

            “You _are_ addicted,” Combeferre muttered, “and no, not when he sees me and Joly’s faces when you ask.”

            “How are you feeling, anyway?” Joly added. “Headaches, stomach aches, how’s your heartrate?”

            Grantaire extended one arm towards them, draping the other hand across their brow and leaning back on Combeferre in a false swoon. _“Oh Bones,”_ they whimpered, “what’s the diagnosis? What’s _wrong_ with me?!”

            True to form, Joly took Grantaire’s wrist without irony, checking their watch as they counted beats. Meanwhile, Combeferre pressed the backs of his fingers to Grantaire’s forehead as Enjolras looked on, smiling faintly at the tableau.

            “When was your last actual cup?” he asked, and Grantaire’s hand dropped from their face to clear their view across the table.

            “Just before ten?” they answered. “I haven’t had one since I left home, and that’s when I left, so.”

            “Well, no more coffee for _at least_ two hours,” said Joly sternly, setting Grantaire’s hand back down on their lap. “Preferably four. Get this out of your system before you have any more, you could do real damage to your body if you strain it any further. And no strenuous activity!”

            “Does _strenuous activity_ really make you think of Grantaire?” Combeferre remarked, smoothing Grantaire’s hair back from their forehead almost automatically.

            “Well, they do box,” said Enjolras, and Grantaire raised one arm, extending their hand palm-up over the table at the comment.

            _“Thank you!_ At least _someone’s_ paying attention!”

            Joly picked up their cane and prodded it at Grantaire’s side. “Then _no boxing,”_ they insisted. “And no fencing, no roller derby, no hip-hop, no –”

            “No singlestick with the Creative Anachronists,” Combeferre offered. Joly was nodding along, ticking suggestions off on their fingers, when with a sudden flailing of limbs Grantaire scrambled upright, slapping their hands on the table and staring past Enjolras at the café entrance.

            “Shit, it’s cop boyfriend,” they said, low and conspiratorial. Enjolras craned his neck, and Grantaire leaned over the table to frantically hiss, _“Don’t look!_ He might see!”

            “He knows who we are,” said Enjolras, turning back with a roll of his eyes, “he’s probably noticed us already and _proceeded to ignore us.”_

            Pressing a finger to their lips and suppressing a smile, Grantaire leaned on their elbows over the table. “Shh, I wanna see what he does…”

            “You know Cosette’s dad is upstairs, right?” said Combeferre.

            “Figured as much,” Grantaire mumbled; then let out a triumphant, whispered _“Ha!”_ and pointed low over the table at where Inspector Javert stood at the counter. “He just looked up, he wants Leblanc to come down! I’m gonna text him.”

            _“No!”_ came the whispered chorus, as Enjolras, Joly, and Combeferre all lunged towards them, though only Joly and Combeferre were close enough to slap their hands over Grantaire’s as they reached for their phone.

            “For God’s sake, R, let them deal with it themselves!” Enjolras hissed: but there was no ire in his voice, only a kind of friendly, long-suffering rebuke.

            “But my _children –”_ they whined, earning a pinch on the arm from Joly.

            “Calm down, Mrs Bennett,” said Combeferre, ruffling their hair, “don’t you know Lizzy and Darcy could only work through their differences on their own terms?”

            “But he _already knows_ how rich Leblanc is!” Grantaire moaned, flopping sideways into Combeferre’s arms. “If that can’t solve all of life’s woes, _nothing_ can!”

            Tentatively, recklessly, Enjolras reached out with one foot under the table, and gently stomped on Grantaire’s toes.

            _“Leave it,_ R,” he said, almost chuckling. “Even if they come to blows, you’re not allowed to intervene until the caffeine wears off.”

            Snorting, Grantaire heaved themselves up out of Combeferre’s arms and leaned on the table again.

 _“Fine,”_ they drawled. “Since you three are so intent on taking _all_ the fun out of my life, I _won’t_ interfere with Cosette’s dad’s weird hatred-slash-romance with a random cop from across the road.”

            “Grantaire, I think you need a drink,” Joly sighed, making them snort.

            “Wine, beer, or spirits?”

            _“Water,”_ both Combeferre and Joly intoned. Enjolras laughed at Grantaire’s exaggerated, faux-mopey expression, and got up to get cups and water for the table.

            “For someone so eager to look after everyone else,” he said as he stood, “you’re pretty shit at looking after yourself, R.”

            Grantaire merely grinned up at him from their seat, and said: “It’s part of my charm.”

  

* * *

 

 

            It was an assault case from three months earlier. Javert had been working on it since three o’clock that afternoon, combing through the old evidence and picking apart every flaw in the interrogations that had been conducted at the time, until the freshly-minted constable, Dubois, had annoyed him into leaving his office. He’d gone down to Madeleine’s under the pretence of getting something to eat, and continued his work there, out of the constable’s unforgiving eye.

            Try as he might to focus, Javert’s mind would not cooperate. Though he progressed, sluggishly, through the evidence, he couldn’t help his thoughts from straying to the other cases, similar and dissimilar, more and less complicated, more and less _just,_ that littered his past; the other victims he had perhaps done a disservice, the other culprits he had pursued or not pursued as he ought to have. So too did his thoughts stray to future cases: the indeterminate, seemingly infinite stretch of time ahead of him in which he would have to make these decisions again, not with the benefit of hindsight or time to think, but on the spot, each arrest a moral quandary, each court case another moment in which he stared into the black, foaming water of justice he had once believed to be smooth, calm, and easily navigated.

            He hated that he still thought that way, and hated more that he was powerless to stop it.

            Jean had disappeared long ago, apparently doing his accounts. The café was empty but for Javert, and two workers. The young woman shut down the machines and left with a sideways glance at the harried officer; three minutes later, Gavroche Thénardier came out of the kitchen, laden with washcloth, spray bottle, and a bucket and mop, and stared at Javert for a long, fraught moment. Javert glanced up at him, mouth twitching irritably.

            “Just stay out of my way,” he growled, and heard Gavroche scoff at the opposite wall.

            “Mate, you’re the guest here,” he drawled, “I’m just doing my job.”

            “So am I.”

            Gavroche started wiping down tables, snorting to himself. “Glad to see you’re back to your old, dickbag self,” he said, “I was starting to get worried there.”

            Javert’s head shot up, his eyes narrowing and the creases around his mouth growing deeper, and his expression soured even further than usual.

            “As opposed to what,” he snarled, “the person I was when you deliberately prevented me from committing suicide? I’m sorry to inform you, _boy,_ but it’s not as easy as all that.”

            “Oh trust me,” Gavroche muttered, “I know.”

            “Then perhaps you ought to display such knowledge.”

            Gavroche glared at him over his shoulder, stacking chairs legs-up onto a table.

            “Dude,” he said, “just shut the fuck up.”

            Javert’s hands twitched, and his pen hit the table with a clatter. _“How dare you.”_

            Gavroche rolled his eyes. “Don’t you start,” he snapped. “You’re not even on duty, it’s like, eight PM, you can’t arrest me for shit.”

            “A police officer is always on duty,” Javert enunciated, clenching his fists on the tabletop.

            “O- _oh my God,”_ Gavroche cried to the ceiling, “do you ever _listen to yourself_ , holy _shit –“_

            One of Javert’s palms hit the table, though he didn’t remember intending it to. “If you’re going to slander my career,” he spat back, “at least have the decency to do it out of earshot –”

            “Oh, fuck _off, Inspector,_ like your life is that hard –”

            He was standing, now, and there were papers on the floor, but he could barely see them through the flurrying rage in his chest.

 _“You should have let me drown,”_ Javert hissed, leaning, hunched over, on his hands on the table. “You should have let me drown, you fucking brat, _you should have let me die!”_ Gavroche was staring, frozen halfway through wiping down another table, but Javert didn’t care. “D’you think I’m stupid?” he was ranting. “D’you think I’m just some dumb fucking cop who arrested your parents, is that why you did it? Did you think it wouldn’t _matter,_ did you ever take _one second_ to consider that I might know what was best for me?!” His chair was thrust aside as he stepped forward. “Now look what you’ve done, look where you got me – oh yes, what a great act of mercy _Mr_ _Thénardier,_ well done – now you’ve made me nothing but a useless old _dog!”_

            He punctuated the last with a harried kick to the nearest chair, sending it flying and clattering, with two other chairs into a table as Gavroche stumbled backwards.

            “Yes – _yes,_ good, run away you presumptuous _child!”_ Javert spat after him, chin thrust forward, shoulders up, hands balled into fists at his sides as he advanced. Thunder sounded from the stairs as he stabbed an accusatory finger at the boy. “Run away from what _you_ created! I am _nothing_ now, do you hear me? _Nothing!_ I can’t work, I can’t think, I’d be better off dead, so _why did you take that from me?!”_

            “Jesus _Christ –_ Gav, what’s –”

            There were other voices in the shop, now, as he staggered aimlessly back, one he faintly recognised, and one a beloved, hated, terrifying giver of orders.

_“Javert!”_

            He would not listen. He would make this child understand what had been done to him when his solace had been snatched away, when Gavroche Thénardier had ripped his only hope of rest from his very fingers. He snarled with sudden purpose and lunged, snatching frantically at a table in his way, before strong arms were suddenly around his chest, and a low voice in his ear. He scratched at the offending limbs even as he was lifted just off the ground by Jean Valjean’s immense and gentle strength.

            “Don’t do this,” he heard himself babbling, “don’t fucking do this Valjean, you’re as guilty as he is –”

            “Javert, you’re panicking,” Jean was saying, far too close for comfort, and terribly calm. “Grantaire, please take Gavroche away –”

            “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

            “He’s not saying you did, Gav, come on.”

            “Let me go – let me go, you bastard, _let me go –”_

_“Javert, please –”_

            “Come on, Gav.”

_“Javert!”_

            He swung out with an elbow, but it never made contact, as Jean stepped away from him and let him flail, with no direction, no target, no impulse but to move, to strike, and exhaust the beast clawing inside his chest. Jean stepped back up to him, taking a stray fist in the shoulder and not backing away as Javert’s vision began to blur, and he thrust his hands into his hair, trying desperately to calm whatever it was that was doing this to him, sending him flying out in rage as he had never done before.

            Then Jean’s hand was catching first one wrist – then another – and with a sudden push, Javert was slammed back into the wall, one rough hand protecting the back of his skull. All the wind rushed out of him, and everything stopped: wide dark eyes stared unseeing over Jean’s shoulder and across the room at the coffee machines, which glinted dormant in the dim light; his legs felt weak; something wheezed out of his chest.

            With a great, rushing gasp, his breath came back to him, sending him coughing and crumpling into Jean’s arms. Lowered down with infinite tenderness, he found himself on his knees, heaving wracking, belly-deep coughs interspersed with long, sharp breaths which tried too hastily to refill his lungs. When the fit passed, he felt too weak to hold himself up; just as well, then, that Jean was already on the floor with him, arms around his back and chest, keeping him afloat with shushing, whispered sounds that resembled words which Javert barely understood.

            “Hush-sh, now, Javert,” Jean was breathing, “hush now. You’re safe here. You’re safe.” A warm, dry cheek was by his temple, above his lurching lungs. “It was just a panic attack, it’ll pass. Hush, Javert. Hush-sh…”

            Between breaths, Javert swallowed, and turned wearily in place, leaning into Jean’s chest. All the fight and flight had gone out of him, leaving him weak and gasping on the floor, trembling in his extremities. Jean, still making soothing sounds with his mouth, adjusted his position, until he sat with Javert sprawled between his legs, staring at nothing and leaning back against a sturdy chest and shoulders, broad enough to envelop him entirely. He swallowed again.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what came over me.” He recalled Gavroche’s fallen face and baulked, feeling sick. “Oh God, the kid…”

            “Hush now,” Jean murmured, stroking his arm: back and forth, slow, quiet, and patient. “It was panic, nothing more,” he said. “I’m sure Gavroche understands.”

            As Javert blinked, the room came further into focus. One by one, he mentally identified things he could see, and smell, and touch: an upturned table, chairs, papers, and the street outside; the ever-present whiff of coffee beans and chalk dust, and the warm musk of Jean with no aftershave on at the end of the day; the cold floor under his backside and legs, Jean’s warm chest at his shoulder blades, Jean’s burly arms around his chest. He could hear his heart beating, and Jean breathing, and the rush and rumble of traffic from King Street. He could taste iron and the leftover smoothness of coffee.

            He took a deep breath. In; out.

            “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and felt Jean’s embrace draw closer.

            “There’s nothing you need to apologise for,” Jean hummed in return, close to his shoulder. “How are you feeling now?”

            Javert thought for a moment, and eventually came back with: “Exhausted.”

            “Sleep here, Javert,” Jean soothed. “You can’t bike home like this.”

            With a swallow, Javert remained silent. He looked down at Jean’s arms around his chest and felt a surge of belated embarrassment, a mortification at how easy the embrace was to accept, how innocently Jean had given it – an action of necessity, of impulse – and now, how guiltily Javert endured it.

            This gentle hold was not for him.

            Gingerly, he peeled his way out of Jean’s arms, sitting up and leaning over his legs for a moment just to breathe, and prove that he could outside the warmth of Jean’s form.

            “I can sleep in my office,” he said to the floor. He knew that Jean would be frowning behind him.

            “Are you sure you should –”

            Javert interrupted him before he could finish so fearsome a thought.

            “I have work to do anyway,” he said, drawing his legs up underneath himself and crouching, ready to stand. All of a sudden, Jean too was standing, ready at Javert’s side with a hand outstretched to help him up. Javert contemplated it for a moment, one hand already on the back of a nearby chair; and capitulated.

            Jean’s fingers were warm and dry in his, the strength of his arm enough to draw Javert up and to his feet like a rag doll. Javert swayed for a moment, and then stilled, still with his hand in Jean’s. He looked at it, and drew it away.

            “Thank you for your support,” he said, flat and quiet. Jean sighed through his nose.

            “Don’t think about it,” he said, with a lilt of something ironic Javert couldn’t identify. “Are you sure you’ll be all right sleeping in –”

 _“I’m certain,”_ Javert intoned, and looked down at Jean, hoping his eyes alone could communicate both the sardonic comment and the earnest fear that were stuck in his throat. Jean’s mouth went tight, but he didn’t protest.

            “Only if you’re sure,” he said. “My house is open to you.”

            “Yes,” Javert drawled, “you’ve made that abundantly clear.”

 _This,_ he thought: this gentle banter and familiar care were enough to draw the last of the tension from his heart. His breath still trembled, and his hands still shook, but he would apologise to Gavroche in the morning, and he would mind that it didn’t happen again. Jean would help with that, he was sure, even if he didn’t want him to.

            His knees felt weak, but he made it across the road and put away his files in time to curl up on the little sofa in his office. He fell asleep there quickly, worn out by panic, and warmed by the oil heater, the blanket he kept under his desk, and the memory of Jean’s arms hushing him to sleep.

 

            It was two days before Javert saw Gavroche again. Having avoided Madeleine’s for all of Friday, he stepped into the café at eight o’clock on Saturday, and stood face-to-face with the boy across the counter, and knew his expression had turned to blank stone.

            “I apologise,” he said, and watched Gavroche’s wild mouth curl into confusion and defensive laughter. He forced himself to plough through the awkwardness. “I acted and spoke indefensibly to you on Thursday night, in a manner unbefitting my position and my age.” He was staring resolutely at the space just above Gavroche’s head, hands clenched at his sides. “To tell you that it was an attack of panic is an explanation but not an excuse, and if there is anything I can do to make up for the unwarranted aggression I showed towards you, do not hesitate to let me know.”

            He finished with a nod, and finally glanced down at the boy’s face. He was looking at Javert with an expression which was too dumbfounded and amused to be pity.

            “That’s… it’s fine,” he said, with a shrug in his mouth. “Freaked me out a bit, but no harm done. I, uh… I get that it was a panic attack, not you.”

            Javert nodded again, stern and perfunctory, settling the matter. “Thank you,” he said. “And could I have an espresso please.” He stirred himself into action again, pulling out his wallet, and asking, “Is Jean here?”

            “In the house, I’m pretty sure,” Gavroche shrugged, punching in the transaction. “Either baking or doing push-ups, I assume.”

            A little smile twisted at Javert’s mouth under a quiet snort of laughter. “Yes, that sounds about right.”

            “D’you want me to get him for you?”

            Javert shrugged, taking his change from the kid. “It’s not important,” he said, “I don’t have any _reason_ to see him, it’s not like I need him for something, I was – just wondering.”

            Gavroche was watching him with brows raised over an impeccable smirk.

            “I’ll go get him.”

            Javert opened his mouth to protest, but managed nothing, as Gavroche handed over the order to the girl at the machines and disappeared into the back room. Javert waited about for his coffee, then took a seat near the back of the shop, staring though the front window at the greenery outside. A moment later, he watched Jean appear from the back room – clad all in dark, tight exercise gear – and glance about the shop until he spotted Javert. With his face set in something firm and sympathetic, he marched across to Javert’s table.

            “I’m sorry if I interrupted something,” Javert said before Jean could open his mouth. “I didn’t mean to call you away from –”

            Jean waved the apology away. “I was only doing some exercises, I can fit them in any time,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

            Javert took a sip of his coffee and restrained his rolling eyes. “Fine,” he said; and, at Jean’s sceptical expression, let out a sigh as he set down his cup. “Honestly, I’m _fine,”_ he insisted. “Thursday was… an aberration. I got caught up in my work, saw Gavroche unexpectedly, and let myself go. I won’t let it happen again.”

            “You know,” said Jean, in a low voice, “you can always find me if you need help. Or I can give you contacts in mental health, recovery, those sorts of things, you must –”

            Javert shook his head. “No,” he said, cutting Jean off. “Look: I appreciate you’re trying to help, but I don’t want to cause any more of a fuss. If you sent me to a therapist I wouldn’t know what to say, I’m not…” He floundered for something to finish the sentence with – ‘depressed’, ‘sick’, ‘suicidal’ – but everything made it sound like a lie. He flicked a hand through the air, dismissing the sentence. “I can handle this. I _will_ handle this.”

            “Javert…” There was something indescribably sad in the crease of Jean’s brow, and the depth of his eyes. Javert felt entranced by it even as it distanced him. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

            Javert’s mouth went tight.

            “I’ve done everything else in my life alone, Jean Valjean,” he said, and watched as Jean’s sad gaze shuttered, his shoulders tensed, and he eased back a little from the table. _Good,_ Javert thought, and went on: “I don’t need to start handling it with company now.”

            Jean let a long, slow sigh out through his nose, watching Javert. Finally, he averted his gaze, shrugging just slightly.

            “It’s up to you,” he said. “Just know that there _is_ support if you want it.”

            “Thank you,” Javert drawled, “but I don’t. I apologised to Gavroche, I know what signs to look out for, and it won’t happen again. That’s all there is to it.”

            Jean conceded the point with an angled nod of his head, and pushed back his chair; but even as he did, something caught in Javert’s chest. He knew that expression, of pain and isolation, on Jean’s face, and it hurt to know that, once again, he had been the one to put it there. He leaned forward, on instinct, as Jean pulled away, and felt a gasp pull at his throat.

_“Jean –”_

            He looked down at Javert, and stilled – but no words escaped Javert’s open mouth. He didn’t know how to describe the bereft sensation of watching Jean leave; didn’t know even if he _should_ describe it. Yet still Jean softened, the lines around his mouth smoothing out a fraction as he lowered himself back to his chair and pulled it in, resting his hands on top of the table. Javert mimicked the movement, more out of his depth than he had ever felt before, threading his own fingers together and breathing out. He watched his hands, and Jean’s hands, on the table, and said nothing; and, most relieving of all, Jean followed his lead. Together, they sat in silence, as the café moved around them and Javert finished his coffee. At twenty past eight, Javert sighed, and met Jean’s eye, and licked his lips before he spoke.

            “I am well aware of the fault of my own pride,” he said. “But thank you for pointing it out.”

            Something softened in Jean’s expression, so that it almost approached a smile.

            “I didn’t point anything out,” he replied.

            “It was implied,” Javert growled, and left it at that. Jean was still wearing an expression that reminded Javert of a smile while still not being one.

            “You’re going to work now?”

            Javert nodded, shoving back his chair to stand, and Jean rose beside him, silent and sturdy.

            “I may see you tomorrow,” said Javert, taking out his wallet and rifling through the receipts for no reason. “I have to buy groceries, so I’ll be coming through Newtown as usual.”

            Jean met the information with a nod and – finally – a gentle smile.

            “We look forward to having you,” he said. He watched Javert for another breath or two, and under his gaze, Javert stilled, quiet and unfidgeting, meeting his eye.

            Javert cleared his throat.

            “Until then,” he muttered, and stepped aside and around Jean, striding across the café and out onto the street. He steeled himself against finishing up the same assault case he’d been poring over on Thursday night, and resolved that he would survive that day – just that one day – before focusing on the rest.

 

            He could no more avoid Madeleine’s than he could stop himself breathing. Javert went through his usual Sunday morning routine of weights, a load of washing, and some perfunctory cleaning, then ended up locking his bike to the fence outside the café and skulking his way inside for a coffee. Jean served him with a pointed, encouraging smile, and chatted with him over the machines about his volunteering duties at the Surry Hills mosque as he worked. There was an air of wistfulness about him, as he told Javert about teaching Cosette Arabic when she was little, and how she was now passing that knowledge on to Marius and Feuilly in exchange for Feuilly’s Hebrew expertise.

            Javert mostly listened in silence, and drank his coffee, and deftly picked up the conversation again whenever Jean had to abandon it to serve customers.

            Eventually, he finished his drink, and headed towards the shops. When he left, his bike’s saddlebags were laden down with food for the week, and his chest felt a little lighter after all.

 

* * *

 

            Javert was leaving work late again when he heard the stuttering rattle of chattering teeth. He frowned, and propped his bike up against the front of the building, taking long, silent, definite steps towards the alley to one side of the station, where Montparnasse had lurked so many weeks ago. There, sequestered away at the far end of the alley, he recognised the Greek kid from Cosette’s group of friends, the one he knew from far fewer rallies than the others, curled up in the far corner and shivering against the concrete.  Javert cocked his head, and slipped around the gate to edge into the alley. Unconsciously, his hand swept back the edge of his coat, even though his gun was no longer there to be seen.

            “Robin Grantaire.”

            They finally looked up at the sound of their full name. Their eyes were baggy and bloodshot, and the redness over their cheekbones was startling in contrast to their dark, messy hair and the paleness of the rest of their skin.

            “How the fuck –” they started, voice trembling. “How d’you know my full name?”

            “You gave it to me,” Javert flatly replied. His knees were bending without his will as he approached. “When I interviewed Éponine Thénardier, at Madeleine’s. You were there as a witness.”

            “Oh.” Grantaire’s teeth were chattering. There was sweat on their lip and brow, glimmering in the dim light of the street lamps beyond the end of the alley. “Right.”

            Javert’s eyes narrowed.

            “Grantaire, what’s happened?”

            “Why,” they chattered, “you gonna – a-arrest me for vagrancy or something?”

            “Vagrancy offences have been abolished since 1979,” said Javert. “I’m only authorised to order you to move on if I have reasonable suspicion that you may cause injury or alarm to others, or to detain you if you’re acting in a disorderly or dangerous manner because of suspected intoxication.” It all came out sounding like a rote memorisation, but he could see the scraps of legal acts as if they were passing before his very eyes, outlining his powers and their delineations. He had never thought about them so closely, not since training; not _Before._ His brow furrowed, the crease between his eyes growing deeper, as he scrutinised the ball of hoodie and trackpants before him.

            “Are you all right?”

            Grantaire was shaking, sweating, eyes darting around as if they weren’t sure quite where to look. Javert’s concern grew.

            “Robin, answer me.”

            Grantaire started to laugh, a grating, hiccuping, manic little sound that was all wrong.

            “No one calls me that!”

            With a flick of his hand, Javert swept the tails of his greatcoat out of the way, and knelt down on one knee, half-crouched, to get closer to the kid. He outstretched his hands, stopping to turn them palms-up halfway.

            “Grantaire,” he said, forcing his voice to stay low and soft – _like Jean,_ he thought to himself, _think of how Jean would be_ – “what’s happened to you?”

            With a loud swallow, and their lips pressed tight together, Grantaire nodded, up and down a few times, a frenetic movement. Then they stilled, breathing hard, and silent.

            “’Ferre,” they finally blurted. “’Ferre said I should get sober. I mean, him and Joly have been bugging me for –” They stopped to giggle again, and went on. “I dunno, fuckin’ ages, but whatever, burdens of being friends with a hypochondriac med student, right? Anyway, I dunno. I listened. Or something.”

            “Withdrawal, then,” Javert concluded. His hands had dropped. “Drugs?”

            Grantaire’s head shook, very sharp, just once. “Alcohol.”

            “It’s not safe here for you,” Javert said. “Under the Intoxicated Persons Act, I’m authorised to detain you, but –”

            Here the spectre of Jean Valjean appeared before him in his mind; and he thought of Robin Grantaire sitting in one of the holding cells, shaking and confused, feverish, heart racing, possibly hallucinating; he’d seen it before. He thought of Robin Grantaire, going through that, alone, in the dim, uninviting station depths.

            Grantaire was grinning at him now.

 _“Delirium tremens,”_ they stammered out – then squeezed their eyes shut, groaned long and low, and lowered their head to their knees. Javert thought he heard a sob.

            “You need a hospital,” he said. Grantaire shivered, and Javert wasn’t sure what the stuttering sound he heard was, but he was certain that it wasn’t a laugh.

            “No,” they said into their knees. “I’m not going.”

            Javert pressed his lips together, and shifted forward, crouching lower to the ground. “Can I take you home?”

            Grantaire shook their head again, still with their face hidden. “Three goon sacks in the house,” they muttered, “that’s why I’m here. Figured someone’d arrest me if it got too bad.”

            “You can’t stay out here, Grantaire,” Javert gritted through his teeth, “it isn’t safe or healthy.”

            “Or legal,” they snorted, and Javert felt something in his chest start to splinter.

            “It _isn’t safe,”_ he repeated. “And it is my duty as a police officer to protect the safety and security of the community, to keep people from harm, including you. I have to bring you somewhere.”

            Finally, Grantaire lifted their head, but it was only to glare and growl, _“Where?”_

            Javert resolutely did not look over his shoulder.

            “Madeleine’s,” he said. “Jean would take you in. He can look after you, and he won’t judge you.”

            “Bullshit,” Grantaire spat. Javert was inclined to smile at that.

            “Trust me,” he said, “that man is too forgiving for his own good. He’ll look after you.”

            Grantaire stared. “Trust _you?”_

            Javert had no answer to that. He sighed slowly to himself, and when he spoke, it was quiet, low, and calm.

            “Come to Madeleine’s with me,” he said. Then, with more difficulty: “Let me help you.”

            Grantaire glared a little longer; then scraped out with their hands against the wall, and pushed to their feet. Javert swiftly followed, and reached out to steady the mangy kid when they swayed and stumbled, pressing shut their eyes.

            “Come on then,” Javert muttered, trying to affect that same, soothing tone Valjean had used with him. It had been useless, but it had been soft on the ears, and not so grating as a direct order. Javert swung his left arm around Grantaire’s back so he could support both of their elbows and walk them to the end of the alley and across the dim-lit street. Outside Madeleine’s, Javert could see that there was no light on within, and he began to fear. He released one of Grantaire’s elbows so he could knock, and felt the kid slump and rest their weight on Javert’s arm and shoulder. They were still shaking alarmingly. Javert knocked again.

            From behind the curtain to the back room, a light became visible, and a moment later, Jean’s white-haired head was poking through the doorway, bleary-eyed and wary. He saw Javert, and then Grantaire, and his brow creased alarmingly as he crossed the room, dressed in his usual dark trousers, but with Ugg boots, and only a thin t-shirt on top. He opened the door with a clatter of locks and blinds.

            “Javert?” he said, still frowning. “What is this?”

            “I found them in the alley next to the station,” Javert explained. “Alcohol withdrawal. Can we come in?”

            Jean nodded absently, standing back to let them pass. As the door swung shut behind them, Jean hurried forward, pulling a chair from the nearest table for Javert to spill Grantaire’s weak form onto. They immediately sucked in a breath, and hunched over their knees.

            “Alcohol withdrawal?” Jean repeated, as he crouched in front of Grantaire.

            “That’s what they told me,” Javert muttered, “and I’m inclined to believe them. They refused a hospital, and wouldn’t go home, and I thought here would be… Well, I thought it would be better than a holding cell for the night.”

            Jean sent a brief, grateful smile over his shoulder to Javert, then refocused on Grantaire.

            “R?” he said, softly. “R, can you hear me?”

            “Monsieur Leblanc,” Grantaire drawled, grinning under their red-rimmed, squinting eyes at Valjean. “What brings you here?”

            “R, you’re at the café,” said Jean, all calm. His hands were pressing against Grantaire’s shoulder and the pulse point on their neck. Javert watched his mouth go tight with worry. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”

            Grantaire sucked in a breath, and pressed their lips together, shaking their head faster and faster and humming little negative noises, over and over.

            “M-mm. M-mm, not there, no thanks, no thanks please. Can’t afford it. Too bright. Don’t want mum to find out. M-mm.”

            “All right,” Jean soothed, “all right, not the hospital then. Come upstairs with me, we can give you the spare room for as long as you need. We’ll do what we can to make you comfortable.” He turned and looked up at Javert, as Grantaire started to squeeze at their own arms. “Javert, can you wake Cosette? Up the stairs in the kitchen, right hand door ahead of you at the top.”

            Javert nearly let his jaw drop open; but he obeyed, recognising the emergency in Jean’s frightened gaze. As Jean stood and hefted Grantaire easily into his arms, Javert hurried through the curtain where he’d never ventured before, into the brightly-lit kitchen beyond. The stairs were straight ahead of him, but he caught a glimpse as he passed of stainless steel benches, a huge sink and industrial dryer, and the doorway to an enormous pantry near the back door, before he disappeared around the landing and up onto the shadowy upper floor. There was a large, open space there, cluttered with sofas and chairs and low tables, with two closed doors ahead and a narrow corridor behind. Javert ignored the tempting notion of seeing more of this odd family’s house, and headed right. As he knocked on the door, he heard Jean’s heavy footsteps following up the stairs.

            “Miss Fauchelevent,” he called through the door, “it’s Inspector Javert from the Newtown Police. Your father and I require your assistance.” Silence answered him, but for Jean’s approach. Javert knocked again. “Miss Fauchelevent?”

            “Door on the right back here, Javert, if you please,” came Jean’s voice. Javert hurried to comply, slipping around in front of Jean as he reached the landing and opening the right-hand room off the corridor before returning to Cosette’s door. He snatched a look at the clean, simple guest room beyond as he turned away.

            “Miss Fauchelevent,” he called again, “it’s your friend, Robin Grantaire, I found them outside –”

            The door was snatched open before him, and Cosette – gangling, and wearily tying her hair up in a scarf – squinted out at him, then beyond, to where Jean was manoeuvring Grantaire’s limp form through the doorway to the guest room.

            “R?” she said, voice hoarse from sleep; then her eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh –”

            She brushed past Javert, and ran to join her father in the guest room, where the light was just clicking on. Javert followed, on more hesitant feet, and lingered in the doorway, watching as Jean lowered the shivering Grantaire to the bed and he and Cosette gathered around. Jean was murmuring something about Panadol for the fever, and Cosette was trying to get Grantaire to focus on her. Javert ran his fingers through his sideburns, toes curling in his boots. He swallowed.

            “I can trust you to look after them to the best of your abilities from here,” he forced out, and didn’t look at where Jean was glancing over his shoulder at Javert with an expression open and wide, anxious all over, but somehow inviting. “I can see myself out.”

            “Javert –” Jean began; but Grantaire was beginning to whine in pain. He shifted back only so far that his hand was on their ankle. He looked again at Javert, and said, all in earnest: “Thank you, Javert.”

            Javert’s fingers twitched at his side, but he kept them firmly away from anything they might fidget with.

            “Only doing my duty,” he forced out in a mumble; then nodded once – almost a bow – and fled, back through the cosy open living room, down the stairs, and past the gleaming steel kitchen and familiar café and onto the street. He looked perfunctorily both ways at the curb, and dived into the safety of the station house, already formulating the paper report in his head.

 

            The next morning (nearly the same day, in the end, with how late he got home), Javert stalked into Madeleine’s at eight-thirty and ordered his espresso as usual. Jean shot him an unusual glance over the counter, but didn’t address whatever was bothering him. Javert suspected what it was, but didn’t ask; if it was as he thought, Jean’s confusion was about to be dispelled.

            Javert stopped on the other side of the espresso machines, and cleared his throat.

            “How is Grantaire?”

            Jean looked up at him with a start, and Javert felt a little warmer as he watched a smile grow on that kind mouth.

            “They’re better than last night,” he said, quietly, so the rest of the shop would not overhear. “Cosette’s taking the day off from her lectures to look after them, and she called Combeferre and Joly in case they can help. Time and comfort, though, I suppose, are all we can do for them…”

            Javert nodded: perfunctory, stern, obedient. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

            Jean was looking at him, very queerly, over the machines.

            “Why _did_ you bring them here?” he asked. Javert froze, and looked away.

            “My authority as a police officer gives me the power to detain someone whose intoxication threatens the safety of themself or others, or to transport them to a place of care,” he said, flat and unmoving. “As I told you last night, they refused a hospital and wouldn’t or couldn’t go home, and keeping them in holding would only have worsened their condition. Taking them here seemed like the most sensible option. Nearby, people they knew, people I could rely on to take care of them. It made sense.”

            Jean was smiling at the milk as he poured out the cups. “Would you like me to keep you updated on their progress?” he asked. Javert sniffed.

            “Only if something important happens,” he muttered. “I don’t need a blow-by-blow account.”

            Jean’s smile twisted at one corner to something sardonic and amused. He moved along the counter to where the drinks were served, and pushed an espresso towards Javert, as he called out, “Marius?” Across the room, Javert saw the dark, awkward boy startle wildly in his seat, catching the attention of Éponine who sat across the table from him, reading. As she looked up, Jean signed to her that her coffee was ready, and she smiled and stood to approach. Javert noticed that both of the youths looked drawn, worried, and underslept. He snatched up his coffee before Éponine could reach the counter, and sequestered himself away at a table by the wall; to his mortification, Jean abandoned the machines to Gavroche and his friend, and followed.

            “Thank you,” he said, as he lowered himself into the seat opposite Javert, as Javert tried desperately not to look too long at him. “I told you you could be a good officer.”

            Javert scoffed, frantically. “That has nothing to do with it,” he snapped. Jean angled a sardonic, stern look at him, and he capitulated almost immediately. “Don’t make more of this than it is,” he mumbled into his coffee, “I just – felt for the damn kid. They don’t deserve to have a seizure in holding or on the street.” His low voice was almost meaningless in the chatter of the cluttered café, and Jean was still smiling pleasantly at him.

            “I told you,” was all he said, before he rose again, and returned to the counter. Javert ignored him, as well as the lifting, uncomfortable sensation in his belly, and refocused on his coffee, and the work that was waiting for him at his desk.

 

* * *

 

            It was an unspoken rule that other police officers did not talk to Javert when he was in Madeleine’s.

            He wasn’t sure how the rule had come up – presumably, other officers had a preference for keeping away from the stern and distant inspector – but he certainly appreciated it. More often than not, when he was in the shop for longer than it took to simply order a coffee and take it back to his desk, he was either talking to Jean or working, and neither of these things did he want to be interrupted by awkward conversation with colleagues. For the most part, they were good enough people to work with, bringing various levels of intelligence, enthusiasm, and diligence to the job; but Javert felt no need to interact with them outside of the workplace. He never had. Work friends were a mystery to him, as indeed _friends_ alone were; or had been, before the accident that was Jean Valjean.

            There were a few exceptions to the rule. He admired his superior, Superintendent Gisquet; he respected Inspector Ramachandran and one or two of the sergeants in his LAC; and there were a handful of constables with which he’d shared traffic patrols and investigations, and who had been decent enough conversationalists, happy to chat but bright enough to read Javert’s silences for what they were. Senior Constable Girard had started greeting him when they passed each other in the doorway to the station or Madeleine’s, and Dubois had a tendency to waylay him in the corridors, but that was bearable enough. They were all colleagues, however, and he felt no need to encourage socialisation outside of work.

            When Constable Al-Khous sat down across from Javert one day at lunch in Madeleine’s, then, he was nothing short of bewildered into silence.

            “Sorry, Inspector,” the constable murmured, nudging his chair closer to the table by the back wall, “is this a bad time?”

            “Yes,” Javert said without preamble.

            “I thought you were on your lunch break,” Al-Khous shrugged, glancing down at the files strewn across the table under Javert’s coffee and leftover microwave lasagne. “Is this the Woodbury case?”

            “You’re not assigned to it,” Javert snapped, “so it doesn’t matter. Why are you talking to me?”

            Al-Khous sighed, and rubbed his eyes, bumping his glasses out of place.

            “I’m really sorry,” he said in an undertone, lowering his hands, “but I couldn’t bring it up in the station. I didn’t think it’d be… safe.”

            Javert’s ears immediately pricked at Al-Khous’ tone, and he lowered his fork to the tupperware in front of him.

            “What isn’t safe about the station?”

            He wished Jean were there, at the same time as he violently wished to be anywhere more private. There were two instincts warring within him: one that wished to defend the force at all costs, and another which wanted only to resolve the problem which had led to such distress in his constable that he’d sought out Javert during his break.

            Al-Khous was watching him with worried eyes underlined by a myriad of freckles splashed across his nose. He seemed to be deciding something.

            “Constable Brook has been – making remarks about me.”

            Javert was taken so off guard by the confession that he felt himself draw back a fraction, pulling in his chin in surprise, not so much at the accusation as at the fact that Al-Khous had come to _him_ with it. The constable saw his reaction, and immediately faltered.

            “Oh, hell,” he breathed, burying his face in his hands and pushing his glasses up and askew, “I knew I should’ve gone to Ramachandran with it –”

            “Inspector Ramachandran isn’t your commanding officer,” was Javert’s immediate response. “You work under my unit, of course you came to me.”

            “I’m sorry,” Al-Khous forced out, raising his head – “I know we’re meant to go straight to the superintendent with this stuff anyway, but Gisquet’s – well, he’s – he’s white. I mean come on, he’d probably just tell me to stop being sensitive and that Brook’s being harmless, but he’s _not,_ I mean –”

            Javert overrode him before he could gain any more frantic momentum. _“You did well,”_ he intoned, cutting Al-Khous off. “I – thank you for bringing this to me. What –” He fumbled for a moment, swallowing and shuffling the Woodbury file together and scrounging for his notebook and pen. “What’s Brook been doing?”

            Al-Khous sucked in a breath and pressed his mouth together, letting it out in a sigh through his nose. He glanced down at Javert’s notebook and back up.

            “Just for reference,” said Javert. “To ensure Brook’s penalty is appropriate.”

            The constable’s face screwed up. “It’s not…” he winced – “it’s not big stuff, just comments now and then. He looks at me weird, any time someone mentions ISIS he asks if I know anything – I heard him telling Langford he was gonna ask for a transfer so he didn’t have to work traffic with me –”

            Javert’s face shot up from where he’d been bent over his notebook, scribbling. He jaw felt tight.

            “Constable Brook told me that was because he had to attend a funeral.”

            Al-Khous baulked. “The traffic patrol shift next Wednesday?” he said, and Javert really did grit his teeth.

            “Lying sack of – what else?”

            Al-Khous shrugged, a little looser than before. “As I said, nothing big. Dumb comments, stuff like the transfer. I’m not the most devout Muslim, but he sometimes tries to keep me away from prayers, too.”

            “It’s discrimination,” Javert spat, still writing, “plain and simple. I won’t stand for it.”

            “Inspector, I just wanted to bring it up –”

            Javert slapped down his pen and drew himself up, looking Constable Al-Khous in the eye.

            “I’ll file a formal complaint against his behaviour,” he said, “recommending at least one week’s unpaid suspension and mandatory sensitivity training within a month. I’m sorry I didn’t notice this myself and put a stop to it earlier.”

            There was a moment’s stunned silence; then Al-Khous laughed, a short, blunt sound and a huffing breath, as a smile seemed to glow across his whole face.

            “It’s fine,” he shrugged. “He never does it in front of you, anyway. I mean, you’re –” He gestured across the table at Javert, smile still growing. “You’re black, but you outrank him, he never would’ve dared. Probably thought you’d side against him because of reverse racism or some crap.”

            Javert screwed up his nose at the idea. “Brook’s a decent officer for beat work, but he’ll never make it past Senior Constable with that attitude. Wouldn’t make it to Sergeant anyway, but that’s another matter.”

            Al-Khous laughed aloud at that. “Are you – sir, are you _shit-talking_ your own constables?”

            Javert glared at the implication, and Al-Khous’ laughter faded gratifyingly quickly.

            “I’m only telling the truth,” he growled. “Brook has no initiative and very little dedication, and I’m unsurprised to learn that his lack of respect for others extends to racism towards his fellow officers. I’ll put a formal complaint through to Gisquet this afternoon and have Brook suspended for racial abuse towards a colleague.”

            Constable Al-Khous sat back in chair. “I – wow,” he stammered. “Okay, sweet. I mean, I just wanted to bring it to your attention, maybe he’d stop –”

            “He’s certainly going to stop after this,” Javert muttered, earning another grin from Al-Khous.

            “Okay,” the constable laughed. “Wow, thank you.”

            “Don’t mention it,” said Javert. “Now – I have work to do. Please don’t ever disturb me at lunch again.”

            Al-Khous chuckled again; but he also stood up from the table rather quickly.

            “Right, got it,” he said. “Thanks, Inspector.”

            Javert tore the page on Constable Brook out of his notes and slipped it into his breast pocket, spreading out his work on the Woodbury case once more.

            “Return to your duties, Constable Al-Khous…”

  

* * *

 

 

            There were two suitcases beside the door of Madeleine’s, and a taxi idling outside by the curb. With a growling stomach and his lunch in a paper bag clutched in his hand, Javert sidled into the shop with narrowing eyes. At the back of the room, Cosette was hugging her father, and practically shivering with excitement. Marius, standing behind them, waved enthusiastically at Javert as he came in, then immediately looked as if he regretted the action.

            “Remember, we’re not meant to stay in contact!” Cosette was laughing. “No calls, no texting, no emails, no Skype, no – Tumblr anons, nothing like that!”

            Jean just hugged her tighter; his smile, where she couldn’t see it, was thin.

            “Grocery money is in your account already,” he said. “I’m going to miss you so much!”

            Cosette clutched his shoulders and drew back to kiss his cheeks – once, twice, then once on the forehead – still laughing with the kind of joy which filled the room and made her eyes swim with tears.

            “We can do this!” she insisted. “We’ll have to one day, and it’s only two weeks! I’ll come round after uni when I can, okay?”

            Jean leaned up to return her kiss on the cheek, and held her hands in his at their sides.

            “You don’t have to worry about that,” he said kindly. “It’ll be out of your way. And if you and Marius have to cook dinner, you won’t want to be getting home any later than you need to…”

            Cosette chuckled as Marius – at Jean’s sideways glance – averted his gaze.

            “I think Courf’s going to be directing us with the cooking for a little while,” Cosette admitted, grinning at her boyfriend’s wide-eyed embarrassment. “Marius’ cooking only extends to instant ramen and tea.”

            Jean matched her laugh with one of his own, his smooth, rich tones underlying her quick mirth. “Here,” he said suddenly, letting go of her hands to take out his wallet and drawing out a few notes – “for the taxi. No, no –” he added at her protests, “I insist.”

            With an expression of gentle, overjoyed gratitude, Cosette took the money, kissed her father once more on the cheek, and retreated, throwing a litany of farewells over her shoulder as if, if she didn’t leave then, she never would. She and Marius each grabbed one of the suitcases by the door, and, heedless, Cosette sent a grinning “Oh, bye Inspector!” at Javert as she passed him; and then they were gone, a whirlwind of chattering laughter and luggage, stowed away in a taxi and rolling away from the curb.

            Javert pulled his gaze from the front window, and crossed the room to Jean.

            “Is she going on holiday?”

            Jean – startled out of his reverie – tore his dewy eyes from the empty street. “Oh!” he sighed at the sight of the inspector. “Javert, you didn’t have to wait for me to be done – go get your coffee – how long have you been waiting?”

            Javert snorted. “Thirty seconds at most. Don’t change the subject. Where is she going?”

            Jean looked out the window again, smiling faintly.

            “Housesitting with Marius and Courfeyrac for Courf’s parents,” he said. “Marius has been in student housing since last year, and they’re thinking of moving out together, so it’s something of a trial period. They can practise living together properly but there’s plenty of space, and Courfeyrac is there in case things go wrong.”

            His eyes, Javert thought uncomfortably, were far too wistful for such an innocent event.

            “Well, good,” he harrumphed. “I hope they have a terribly stressful fortnight finding out what it’s like to come home exhausted and still have to fend for yourself.”

            Jean’s raised brow was a silent reprimand which Javert defiantly refused to be cowed by.

            “Now, Javert,” Jean said, “they’re barely twenty. There’s no need to go around shocking them with the terrible realities of adulthood _just_ yet.”

            Javert snorted at that. “I’d been working for six years and living alone for three by the time I was their age. They’ll have to learn sometime.”

            “Has it occurred to you that some children might _benefit_ from a life less harsh than ours?” Jean sighed, as he finally roused himself and crossed to behind the counter, slipping in beside Azelma at the machines. “Espresso today?” he asked, ending the discussion. Javert nodded, then frowned.

            “Hold on, I haven’t paid yet,” he said. “I’ll wait in line like everyone else.”

            “Javert,” Jean laughed, “I can just make it here –”

            “I’ll _wait in line,”_ Javert repeated. “I refuse to be an accessory to any more of your hypocritical business practices than I can help.”

            He marched to the back of the little queue near the door, and resolutely ignored Jean’s wistful smile.

 

            The next morning, Javert got all the way to the front door of Madeleine’s before noticing the sign taped up there.

 

_CLOSED_

_until further notice_

_We apologise for_

_any inconvenience_

 

            Javert’s frown did not dissipate until he got to his office and was halfway through his first report.

 

            Madeleine’s remained shut at lunch, the unlit interior just visible through the venetian blinds, chairs still stacked on tables and machines silent and untouched. Javert stood on the curb across from the station house and pursed his lips, sucking on his teeth below his frown. He drew out his phone as he buried his chin in his coat collar and marched back across the street to eat lunch in his office.

 

_To: Jean_

_12:38pm, 18 June_

_Why is the cafe closed?_

 

            By the time Javert left work that night, after countless glances from his office window, he was properly confused, and Jean had not replied.

 

            Two days later, Javert was getting concerned. He had sent two emails and three more texts in that time, and still Jean had responded to none of them. When Javert had called his phone, it had gone straight to voicemail. For three days, Madeleine’s had been dark and silent, with the chairs legs-up and the machines going unused, the front counter empty of pastries and with no Thénardier children clattering up and down Australia Street with their friends on the way between school and work. And – although Javert had made a habit of never getting involved in anything other than his assigned work – he could not help but intervene. After much sighing and pursing of his lips, he went to the superintendent, requested the necessary forms and permission, and obtained, through the university, the contact details of one Cosette Alauda Fauchelevent.

            He called her from his office on Thursday afternoon.

            “Hullo?”

            “Miss Fauchelevent?”

            Her voice, over the phone, was tinny, abashed, and as open as it was concerned. Behind it, Javert could hear the chatter of what sounded like a large and crowded room.

            “Yeah, I guess,” she laughed. “Who is this?”

            Javert cleared his throat. “Inspector Javert, of the Newtown Police,” he said. “I obtained your phone number through the University of Sydney records.”

            “Oh.” Cosette laughed again. “You could have just asked for it, you know.”

            “I haven’t seen you around Newtown recently,” Javert explained, “and the matter is rather urgent.”

            “Yeah, me and Marius have been run off our feet – turns out neither he _nor_ Courf knows how to so much as boil an egg, so I’ve had to be teaching them…” Javert forced himself not to interrupt until Cosette broke off and restarted. “So what’s this about?” she asked. “You said it was urgent.”

            “Have you seen your father since Monday?”

            “No, that was kind of the point,” Cosette said, with another, songbird laugh; though this one was a little less spirited than the others. “Has – has something happened?”

            “I’m not sure.” Javert was rolling a pen under his fingers over the open file on his desk, watching it bump back and forth over the clip. “Did you know the café has been closed?”

            “Closed?” There was something very discerning under her surprise. “Since when?”

            “Since Monday night,” said Javert. “It never opened on Tuesday morning.”

            “Have you tried to contact dad?” said Cosette. “You have his number, right?”

            Javert pursed his lips. “He hasn’t responded to any of multiple emails, texts, and voicemails. I’ve tried knocking on the café door, but either he didn’t hear me, or –”

            “Or he’s not there,” Cosette finished for him. “That doesn’t make any sense, why would he leave without telling me?”

            Javert sat forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on his desk and twirling the pen now between the fingers of his left hand. “Do you have any idea where Jean might be?”

            “Well, I mean –” Cosette seemed to hesitate, as if wincing to herself. “He does this sometimes – goes off somewhere, to the house in Mt Victoria or Avalon sometimes – but he always tells me when he’ll be back. He’s never just disappeared without a word. And he wouldn’t have gone all the way down to Melbourne, he only keeps that flat for convenience…”

            “Do you have contact numbers for each of these locations?” Javert asked, and clenched his fist over the pen at Cosette’s answering sigh.

            “No,” she said, “we usually just stick to our mobiles. I know the Mt Victoria house has a phone, but it’s usually disconnected unless we’re there or renting it out. I can give it a go, but…”

            “Please do,” Javert said, cutting her off. “Whether you get a response or not, I’d like you to contact me. If Jean’s not in Mt Victoria, I’d like to ask that you to accompany me to your Newtown home and let me into the house. If your father is there, we’ll be able to ask why he cut himself off; if not, then I’ll officially open a missing persons investigation. I promise you, Miss Fauchelevent, your father will be found.”

            Cosette’s voice, when she spoke, was absent and soft.

            “You know, you can call me Cosette.”

            The pen in Javert’s hand stopped its clicking. He swallowed, hard.

            “Cosette,” he said, testing the name in his mouth. It sounded too informal: the way her friends shouted it across the café, or how Jean said it, slipped into conversation with a wistful smile or murmured behind the coffee machines or called up the stairs. For years, he’d known the name as just another way to identify Jean Valjean – something to look out for in investigations and speculations – but it was a nickname for family and friends, not police inspectors who revealed fathers’ secrets in front of an audience.

            Javert banished the train of thought with a tight breath in and out.

            “Cosette,” he said again, “I will make sure that your father is found.”

 

            Cosette shakily agreed to his plan, and he gave her the numbers of both his work and mobile phones. For ten minutes, he scratched away at the records on his desk, filling in forms for the petty arrests and orders given on his constables' patrols in the previous few days. When his work phone gave a shrill warble near his elbow, Javert actually flinched.

            He’d picked it up before the second ring.

            “Inspector Javert,” he snapped.

            “It’s Cosette.”

            A sharp, blue line of ink struck through two separate boxes on the form under his hand.

            “Did you get through to him?”

            “No.” Her voice was tight, and higher than usual, like she was holding something in. “The Mt Victoria phone is disconnected, the home phone rang out four times, and his mobile went straight to voicemail. Javert, what’s going on?”

            Javert was already shoving away his chair, stretching out the phone cord as he crossed to the right filing cabinet.

            “Miss Fauch— Cosette, I need you to get to Newtown as soon as you can.”

            “I’m at uni now, I can be there in twenty minutes,” was her reply. “Jehan can take notes for me this afternoon, it’s fine.”

            “I’m going to request an official search warrant,” Javert went on, “in connection with a possible missing persons case, but it’s just a formality, and we shouldn’t need these things if you consent to a search of the premises yourself. Your house key would be invaluable.”

            “Yeah, absolutely,” said Cosette, “of course I consent. I’ll let you in if you like.”

            “If you could come to the police station as soon as you can,” said Javert, as he pulled two forms from a drawer to copy and fill out. “Ask for me at reception and I’ll join you to look in the house with one of my constables, for accountability. Hopefully Jean will be there and – and unhurt.”

            Cosette’s voice was tight again. “Yep,” she said, and Javert thought he heard her swallow. “Yeah, he has to be there. He has to.”

            “I’ll see you when you get to Newtown.”

            There was a pause; Javert thought he heard a sniff.

            “I’ll be twenty minutes, tops.”

            “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Fauchelevent.”

            Javert heard a wet laugh pass through the phone as he sat back at his desk with forms and pen in hand.

            “Thanks for helping, Inspector,” Cosette said, with a note of audible, if strained, irony. Immediately, Javert hung up, and began the arduous process of bureaucracy with an unfamiliar jitter in his hands.

 

            True to Cosette’s word, Javert received a call eighteen minutes later from reception, telling him that a Cosette Fauchelevent was waiting for him downstairs. Javert dropped his pen – the forms were already with Gisquet – and marched down the stairs, donning his coat and picking up a constable on his way.

            Cosette stood up from her plastic chair as soon as Javert came into view.

            “Javert.”

            There was a messenger bag hanging from her shoulder half-hidden in the folds of her ankle-length dress and pale coat, and her bright, floral hijab was in complete contrast to the anxiety in her expression.

            “Cosette.” Javert held out a hand to indicate the woman at his side. “This is Senior Constable Rachel Girard, she’ll be accompanying us this afternoon. Girard, Miss Cosette Fauchelevent, the missing man’s daughter.”

            Girard nodded, and shook Cosette’s hand, saying in a voice more sympathetic than Javert could ever make his, “We’re going to find your father.”

            “Thanks,” said Cosette, smiling weakly. Javert – having heard from Jean all about the delights of Cosette’s smile since she was a little girl – hated to be seeing it so afraid. “I have the key,” she went on, with a marked determination. “Should we go across now?”

            “I think that’s best,” said Javert. “Lead the way, Miss Fauchelevent. Girard, you take the rear. Be ready for orders.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            They left the station without another word, rounding the far corner of the street and approaching the house from the back. Cosette let them in through the gate, and then the back door, leading the way into the darkened café kitchen, all dully gleaming stainless steel and silent ovens and washers.

            “Dad?”

            Javert slipped past her into the room, holding out a hand to keep her behind him. He noted that Girard was standing ready by the door.

            “Mr Fauchelevent?” Javert called, eyes scanning the curtained entrance to the café, the dark pantry doorway, the stairs, the ceiling above them. “It’s Inspector Javert,” he went on, voice raised just enough for audibility but not enough for aggression, stepping further into the house. “I’m here with your daughter, and Senior Constable Girard. Mr Fauchelevent?”

            Silence met him, but for the beating of his heart, and Cosette’s breathing behind him. He approached the stairs, and felt keenly aware of Girard’s presence.

            “Jean?”

            There was a shuffle above them, and all three of them stiffened at the noise. Javert stepped up to the staircase, motioning for Girard to follow and sweeping the tail of his coat aside for better access to his firearm.

            “Stay behind me,” he whispered, and started up the stairs – stepping on the edges to avoid creaks – as another shuffle of movement sounded from the room above. He craned his neck as he reached the halfway landing, but the house was dark, no light filtering through from the rooms at either end. He heard the rustle of clothes; then a quiet voice, gentle and hoarse and afraid.

            “Javert?”

            Javert’s shoulders slumped, and his breath eased out of his chest. Jean’s voice was weak, and it terrified Javert to hear it sound so timid; but it was still Jean, and whilst the thrill of adrenaline still coursed through his veins, Javert’s relief was palpable, and matched only by that of Cosette behind him.

            Javert bounded up the rest of the stairs two at a time.

_“Jean.”_

            He was just standing up from one of the armchairs cluttering the living room as they approached. Dressed only in trackpants and a t-shirt, Jean’s cheeks were hollow and his beard blurred with stubble around the edges, hair matted and eyes visibly bruised and bagged even in the dim shadow of the room. There was a blanket around his shoulders, and a terrible horror in his eyes.

_“Dad!”_

            Cosette dropped her bag and rushed forward at the same time as Javert, each reaching out to catch one of Jean’s arms as he crooned as if in agony to himself.

            “No, Cosette, no, you weren’t meant to see…”

            “Girard, find the lights, and open those doors –”

            “Dad, what’s going on, you look _awful_ –”

            “Does he need medical assistance?”

            A shuddering breath entered Jean’s chest, and he broke his hand from Javert’s grip to hold it out and snap, in a weak, resounding voice:

_“Stop.”_

            Javert instantly stepped away. His back was stiff and straight, and his breath caught in his chest.

            Light filtered in from the front rooms as Girard opened the doors to the kitchen and Cosette’s room, then found a light switch on the wall. Jean lowered himself back into his seat, and Cosette knelt beside him, with both hands still clutched in one of Jean’s. Javert turned away.

            “You’re dismissed, Constable,” he said, low and steady. “Thank you for your assistance, but there’s no emergency here. You may report to your previous duties, and I’ll contact you tonight or tomorrow morning to sign the official report.”

            Girard spared a curious, worried glance for Cosette and Jean, crowded into his chair; but did not debate.

            “Thanks, Inspector,” she muttered, nodded once, and retreated down the stairs. A few moments later, the back door could be heard shutting behind her.

            “Dad,” Javert heard Cosette whisper, “what’s going on? Javert said you weren’t returning his calls, are you okay?”

            “Cosette –”

            Javert did not want to look. His concern was overwhelming, but this space was not for him.

            “Cosette, you were never meant to see –”

            Within Javert, the inspector overcame the friend, and from the corner of his eye he frowned at Jean: at his shaking hands, and laboured breath, and exhausted, closing eyes. A cruel, haunting suspicion came over him.

            “When was the last time you ate?”

            Both Fauchelevents looked up at him, Cosette turning on her knee and then immediately spinning back to stare at her father. When he did not reply, her fear only grew.

            “Dad?” she said – almost demanded. “Answer the question, dad, when did you last eat?”

            Jean shrugged with his hunched shoulders, eyes in his lap.

            “I’m not sure,” he muttered. “A couple of days ago, I think.”

            Javert sighed even as Cosette let out a gasp, closing his eyes half in horror and half in sheer resignation.

            “Jean, for God’s sake…”

            “Dad _why?”_

            Jean’s eyes were closed; he looked on the verge of tears.

            “Cosette, Cosette,” he sighed – “you were never meant to know…”

            Her mouth was open, and her eyes wide and creased down at the edges in fear.

            “As if that makes it any better!” she cried. “Dad, what on –” Suddenly, she stopped herself, watching her father with an expression built up with experience and calm, unconditional love. She bent her head and firmly kissed Jean’s hand. “No,” she went on, nodding to herself, and pressing Jean’s hand between her own. “No, you know what? It doesn’t matter. You don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. All that matters now, is that we get you better, okay? We’re gonna look after you now, if you can’t look after yourself, and it doesn’t matter why if you can’t talk about it.”

            Jean was gazing down at her with an infinity of tenderness and revelation.

            “Cosette, sweetheart…”

            Suddenly, she was turning in place to Javert again, decided and forceful despite the tear tracks on her cheeks.

            “Javert,” she said, “could you please go fill the kettle?” And so she dismissed him, turning back to her father and saying something about soup, and tea, and turning on the heater, and something warm and filling…

            Javert did as he was told, and crossed to the little kitchen. The kettle was easy enough to find between the microwave and boxes of tea on the counter, and he filled it at the sink, set it down, and switched it on before re-entering the fray. Cosette was still talking to her father in a tone which, though gentle, brooked no argument.

            “… then you’re going to have a nice long shower and a shave, and we’ll get you clean sheets and clean clothes. We don’t ever have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but we’re _going_ to get you well again.”

            Javert cleared his throat.

            “The kettle’s on,” he said. “Is there anything else I can do?”

            “Yes,” said Cosette, standing and still holding her father’s hand. “Could you strip the bed please? His room’s just at the end there –” pointing down the short, narrow corridor opposite the kitchen – “I’m gonna make some cup-a-soup and a pot of tea.” Swooping down, she kissed Jean’s brow and squeezed his hand, before gliding away into the kitchen to begin the clatter of cupboard doors and ceramics.

            Javert glanced down at the floor before Jean’s lost-looking eyes could meet his.

            “I have my orders,” he murmured, only half-joking, and strode away where Cosette had directed him.

            _“Wait –_ Javert, wait –”

            He heard the movement as Jean struggled to his feet to follow him, and studiously, terribly, ignored it.

            “No, Javert, please don’t go in –”

            Jean Valjean’s room was tiny. There was very little clutter – a few papers on the desk, some framed photographs on a shelf over the bed beside a gleaming menorah – but it still felt cluttered by the sheer nearness of the furniture, bed, desk, dresser, and chair all pressed together in the little room and set off by the pull-up bar over the door and a collection of weights in the far corner at the end of the bed.

            Jean caught up to Javert and sighed, resting his face in his hands.

            There on the little single bed, atop the neat, smooth sheets, was a little pair of dark jeans, an undersized black skivvy, a pair of tiny black sneakers, and a blossom-burst of navy-blue tulle that was once a skirt. They were set out beside a yellow suitcase no bigger than a cushion, and in the shadows of the drawn blinds, they loomed large.

            Javert wanted to ask; but he already knew the answer Jean would unwillingly give.

            “Those are hers.”

            Jean slipped into the room behind him, holding himself up on the desk until he could drop into the chair behind it.

            “From when I first took her away from the Thénardiers,” Jean answered nonetheless. Javert looked down at him with eyes creased halfway between admiration and pity.

            “You sentimental old fool,” he breathed. “Is that what this is all about? Your daughter goes off to housesit for two weeks and you think it best to starve yourself half to death –”

            “It’s not just that,” Jean croaked over him. “She’s getting ready to leave, can’t you see? She’ll move out with Marius and Éponine, she’ll grow up with the rest of her friends, and what use will she have then for a father with secrets, and a criminal history, and –”

            “Soup’s ready, dad!”

            Jean started at the sound of his daughter’s voice, and her footsteps coming from the kitchen, and leapt from his seat with an energy Javert would not have thought possible from his wheezing voice and trembling limbs. Trying both to hurry and take care, Jean folded up the child’s clothes on the mattress and stuffed them back into the suitcase, throwing it under the bed before Cosette could see them. When she came in – with an oversized, steaming mug in her hand and smiling concern in her mouth – Jean looked at her with an expression as if he were watching the world end in the most beautiful fashion.

            “Soup’s ready,” Cosette repeated, holding out the mug, then looked back and forth between the two men before her: from her father, to Javert, and back again, as if she were deciding something. “I’ll put it in the living room for you,” she said. “Tea’s on its way, then I’ll get fresh sheets from downstairs. Let me know when you’re done, Javert, I’ll take the sheets down to the laundry.”

            She nodded once, smiled, and retreated again. When she was gone, Javert clicked his tongue and turned towards the bed, grabbing the pillow and stripping away the case in one swift movement.

            “You and your bloody –” he started muttering as he wrestled with the doona. “She’s not going _anywhere,_ you absolute idiot, just because one day she’ll _move out_ –” He dropped the doona cover on top of the pillowcase and started on the fitted sheet. “Self- pitying, self-destructive, fucking _martyr_ –”

            He heard a snort behind him, weak as it was, and resisted the urge to turn a sharp glare on Jean who seemed to have lowered himself back into the chair after his burst of energy.

            _“Self-destructive,”_ he repeated after Javert. “Says the man who practically _invites_ people to fire guns at him point-blank…”

            Javert – bent over the mattress and tearing off the fitted sheet – froze. With the sheet half-crumpled in his hands, he turned to look over his shoulder at where Jean sat with his eyes closed and his head held up in his hand, elbow on the desk and fingers of his free hand still quivering.

            “How do you know about that.”

            Jean’s eyes opened, and caught sight of Javert’s stony expression; only then did they begin to widen in realisation of what he’d said.

            “Oh. Um.”

            Understanding snuck up on Javert, then dealt him a stunning blow to the back of the head. He let out a low groan, and leaned forward to bury his face in the folds of the sheet.

            “You are _kidding me.”_

            “Uh – I _am_ sorry, Javert,” Jean was wincing, “I didn’t know how to tell you…”

            “It was _you?”_ Javert spluttered, lifting his head. _“You_ were at – the one the Thénard— why on earth did you _run,_ what were you thinking?!”

            Jean was grimacing at him, and the expression – livened, however weakly – buoyed Javert up.

            “I knew it wouldn’t look good,” Jean offered in explanation, “what with my record and all, and I couldn’t be sure… God, Javert, you still hated me then, I thought you’d use any excuse to put me back in prison!”

            Javert, though it stung, could not deny the suspicion.

            “Anyway,” Jean went on, shrugging, “I’m so used to running and hiding from the police, I guess it’s just habit by now.”

            Javert fell silent; even his breathing seemed to slow to accommodate it. He plucked the rest of the sheet off the bed and dropped it to the pile on the floor, tossing the uncovered pillow and duvet back onto the bed. Something seemed to be buzzing in his head – like faint static on an old TV – and when he spoke, it was little more than a mutter, pressed out between uncooperative lips.

            “You’re not running now.”

            There was a long moment of quiet. Javert picked up the pillowcase and folded it into a neat square, setting it on the bare mattress and starting on the rest of the sheets.

            “You’re making my bed, Javert,” Jean finally said, far too solemn to be a joke. “I don’t have any reason to run from you.”

            All the breath left Javert in one, deadly rush. He stared at the doona cover in his hands.

            “I should get back to work.”

            Silence fell. Even Javert’s hands went still, for once, with Jean Valjean’s bedsheets hanging from his fingers.

            “I’m sorry, Javert,” Jean sighed behind him, “I never should have said anyth—”

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Javert snapped, flicking the sheet into a square and gathering up the crumpled fitted sheet and the folded pillowcase in his arms, and turning to glare at the infuriating, wonderful man. “Not everything is your fault.” He lifted his chin. “I’ll be noting your presence at the warehouse in the Minette files, but you don’t have to worry about repercussions. It’s clear you were the victim there, and that fear drove you to flee. Your testimony would have been valuable, but was not necessary in the gang’s conviction.”

            Jean sighed up at him from his chair. “Javert,” he said mournfully, “please don’t speak to me like that.”

            Javert froze, about to leave, and frowned. “Like what?”

            There was something very wry in the twist of Jean’s mouth. “Like you’re the stern, objective police officer and I’m the uninvolved bystander,” he said. “You went so far as to contact my daughter so you could come in and check on me, and I’m sure you would have gone further if she hadn’t been available.”

            Javert scoffed. _“You_ were the one who closed the shop and shut yourself away and refused to respond to attempts at communication,” he snapped, marching out of the room to find Cosette. Jean followed him, however slowly. “I was only doing my duty. Besides, the station can’t subsist on instant coffee for more than a few days, I was doing the whole community a favour.”

            Jean laughed, weak but genuine, behind him, sinking back into his armchair as Javert dropped the sheets on the nearest sofa and crossed to the kitchen to find Cosette fishing teabags out of a pot and surrounded by a spread of comforting paraphernalia: teacups, sugar bowl, and milk, as well as the soup from earlier, a heat pack, and a plateful of toast cut into triangles, with butter and jam at the ready.

            “The sheets are on the sofa, Miss Fauchelevent.”

            She laughed at him through a tight throat, and smiled thinly.

            “Thanks, Inspector,” she said, “I can take them from here. Will you stay for tea?”

            He felt himself baulk at the suggestion.

            “No, I uh – I should get back to work,” he forced out. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

            “It’s no imposition.”

            “I really should get back to work.”

            “You’ve done so much for us already…”

            “I do beg your pardon, Miss Fauchelevent –”

            “Call me that one more time and I’ll start calling you _sir.”_

            Javert stilled, and shut his mouth over a dying argument. He bowed his head in acquiescence, hiding a very slight smile.

            “I beg your pardon, Cosette,” he said, “but I honestly should get back to work. If there’s nothing else immediate I can help with, I’ll leave you and your father to recover in peace.”

            Cosette piled the things around her onto a tray and hauled it up from the bench; but when she turned back to Javert, there was something very firm in the line of her chin and the set of her gaze. Javert noticed suddenly that she was almost as tall as him.

            “You haven’t always been kind to us, Javert,” she said, and it sounded only slightly rehearsed. “You haven’t always been fair. But I know you and dad are –” She stopped to lick her lips just briefly. “Working on things,” she finished; “and what you’ve done for us today was very good. Very –” She took a breath, pressing her mouth shut, and finally finished with: “Thank you.”

            Javert felt as if his voice was stuck below his throat, lingering under his collar somewhere and refusing to come out. In an attempt to respond, he bowed his head, and hoped that Cosette would read in the gesture all the humility that was stirring his newborn heart. He was not used to being thanked; he was especially unused to being thanked by the daughters of ex-criminals.

            He cleared his throat.

            “I’ll be going now.”

            Cosette’s smile was broad and understanding. She swept past him into the living room, setting the tray down on a low table near Jean’s chair as Javert trailed after her, and gathering up the sheets on the sofa.

            “I’ll be right back, dad,” she whispered, and kissed his temple. “We’re going to get you well again.”

            And she disappeared down the stairs in a flurry of skirts and loose sheets. Javert’s shoulders were drawn back, his chin pulled in and half-lowered to his chest, hands clasped behind his back. In that moment, he could have passed a military inspection. Then he caught Jean’s eye, and though his posture didn’t ease, something in his soul seemed to re-form in that moment.

            _“You are loved, Jean Valjean,”_ he growled, and buried the stirring feeling Jean’s wide, dark eyes inspired behind his diaphragm. “Don’t forget it.”

            He marched away before Jean could reply and ruin him entirely. Downstairs, he could see a light on and hear the bustle of Cosette from beyond the pantry area, in what was presumably a laundry tucked away behind the café kitchen. The back door was still unlocked, and the gate open, and he strode away and around to Australia Street, measured and orderly, and already composing his brief report in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

            “Javert,” Jean said, in a low, muted voice, when the inspector entered the café on Friday morning, “have you seen this?”

            He was holding out his phone over the counter. He had recovered quickly under Cosette’s care after his breakdown – she had visited regularly for the rest of her time housesitting, plying him with food and unwavering love – but Javert still eyed him for signs of physical deterioration. There were two other people already in the shop, sipping their drinks and reading their papers, and Javert, satisfied, took the phone from Jean’s hands, not even having to flip it: the man had been so considerate as to hold it out to him right-way-round. _Ridiculous._

            It was news report. As Javert scanned the webpage, scrolling quickly, he picked up the facts: a senior sergeant and a senior constable from Brisbane, stood down for reckless driving, dangerous behaviour, unauthorised pursuit. But Javert recognised the senior sergeant’s name, and in case he hadn’t, the article gave a helpful reminder.

            Senior Sergeant Hills, once acquitted in the case of an Aboriginal man, dead in custody an hour after being arrested while drunk. He remembered the case – it had been all over the news – but that had been Before, _well_ Before. Eight years, in fact. He’d only been a senior sergeant himself, at the time, still too trusting of his superiors, shrugging off the issue as that of another state, another jurisdiction, not needing his attention.

            Javert felt his hackles rise.

 _“What?”_ he growled, staring at the phone in his hand, the frown lines around his mouth growing deeper in a snarl. He looked up at Jean. “What the hell is this?”

            “You know the man?” Jean asked, holding out his hand for the phone. It took an effort to remember how to outstretch his arm, but Javert passed it back to him.

            “No,” he answered, “but of course I remember the reports about him. Stood down, awaiting inquiry, because of some _reckless driving?”_

            Jean’s eyebrows were approaching his generous hairline. “You don’t think it was deserved?”

            Javert scoffed hugely, throwing back his head. “Of _course_ it was deserved, reckless and dangerous behaviour is not to be tolerated,” he snapped, “but that man shouldn’t even be _serving_ anymore! Acquitted – _acquitted_ for manslaughter – I hope they dismiss him for this, though it would hardly be enough.”

            “Javert,” Jean was half-smiling, half-frowning, “I’ve never seen you so passionate about punishing another officer.”

 _“The man died in his custody,_ Jean,” Javert snarled. “Even at the time I knew it was wrong, though of course I couldn’t _say_ anything, could I? _That –”_ he pointed at the phone in Jean’s hand, _“that_ was injustice at its finest. _We do not_ murder _people in custody._ We keep the _peace.”_

            Jean was suddenly working on something on his phone, fingers tapping and swiping at speed.

            “What are you doing?” Javert snapped.

            “This incident might bring that sergeant back into the public eye,” Jean said, half-distracted (but only half, Javert noted, with an uncomfortable glowing feeling in his belly). “This could be a good opportunity… Here.” He held out his phone again to Javert, right-way-up again, with a contact open. “Take this number, give her a ring, she’d like your input.”

            Javert did not take the phone. “Who is it?”

            “Her name’s Bahorel – Jiemba Bahorel,” Jean answered, though Javert could obviously see that from the contact name, “one of Cosette’s friends. She does a lot with Indigenous activism, she’ll want to make something of this.”

            “Bahorel,” Javert repeated, and narrowed his eyes. “Aboriginal woman, pale, round face, short hair, tall, muscled – well-dressed?”

            Jean smiled at his memory. “That’s her,” he said. “How do you know her?”

            “I’ve arrested her about six times,” Javert replied, flatly. “She has a habit of picking bar fights.”

            Jean looked like he wanted to laugh at that, but forcibly sobered himself.

            “In any case, as I said,” he went on, “she’ll want to make something of this Sergeant Hills thing. I think she’d like to hear from you.”

            Javert’s face fell. He looked from the phone to Jean, feeling like his stomach had dropped away.

            “I can’t,” he said, anticipating disappointment; but Jean only frowned at him with concern and confusion, and somehow, that was worse.

            “Why not?” he asked. “You’re clearly upset about it, why not help do something about it?”

            Javert shook his head, mouth tight. “No, I can’t,” he repeated. “The commissioner said – I just can’t.” Jean opened his mouth to speak, but Javert overrode him. “Jean, I’ll be fired if they find out, I can’t lose my job.”

            Jean closed his mouth, and it looked as if there was almost a smile in the tilting corners.

            “There’s such a thing as anonymous sources, you know,” he said. He gestured again with the phone in his hand. “Take the number, Javert. Please.”

            Javert stared at him, for a long, heavy moment – and sighed, dropped his shoulders, and copied the number into his phone, as Jean asked:

            “Espresso, as usual?”

 

            If he did it outside of work hours, his culpability was reduced. They wouldn’t have to know. They _wouldn’t_ know. He stood in his kitchen, and called the number Jean had given him.

            The phone nearly rang out before it was picked up, and the tinny, faraway sounds of music, chatter, singing, glasses, shuffling, filtered through to him behind a low, woman’s voice.

            “Yeah?”

            She was in a pub. Javert belatedly realised that it was eight o’clock on a Friday night. He swallowed.

            “Jiemba Bahorel?” he asked. The woman at the other end was shouting just a little over the noise behind her.

            “Yeah, that’s me,” she said, “who’s this?”

            “My name is Inspector Javert, from the Newtown Police. I was given your number by Jean Fauchelevent, the owner of Madeleine’s café. I believe you’re a friend of his daughter, Cosette.”

            “Oh- _ooh!”_ Bahorel crowed, then her voice went distant as if she’d turned away from the phone, and Javert heard her call out to, presumably, a further group. “Hey, it’s Leblanc’s cop boyfriend! Say hi everyone! Enjolras, I think he’s arrested you before, say hi!”

            There sounded a distant chorus of sarcastic greetings, and at least one outraged protestation. Javert frowned. _‘Leblanc’s cop boyfriend’?_

            Bahorel returned to the phone.

            “How can I help you, Inspector?” she drawled. “Looking for inside information about when we next plan to stage a violent protest so you can condemn us in the public eye?”

            Javert’s mouth curled at one side. “I was told you’re the person to go to if I’m interested in joining the movement to hold Senior Sergeant Hills responsible for the death in custody eight years ag—”

            “Okay, but you’re a _cop,”_ Bahorel cut him off. Javert’s eyes narrowed at the opposite wall.

            “So the suspension of Sergeant Hills on the current charge of irresponsible behaviour annoys me even more,” he said, lowly. “He should no longer be capable of being suspended for _any_ police work. He should have been dismissed and punished eight years ago.”

            Javert could hear the grin in Bahorel’s voice.

            “Holy shit.”

            Javert cleared his throat.

            “I’d like to do all I can to support the issue –”

            “Holy _shit!”_

            “– but I must ask you not to make my name public in any actions or reports.”

 _“Holy_ – wait, what?”

            Javert squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and ran his free hand back through his hair.

            “I am not a wealthy man,” he said. “If my name is publicly attached to this cause – a cause _against_ the police force, even if it’s not New South Wales’ – I will lose my job. I can’t afford that.” He failed to mention that it wasn’t just the money holding him there. There was a small pause, which Javert spent idly toying with the hair at the nape of his neck and trying to discern which pub Bahorel was in.

            “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay. Could we – I’d like to interview you? We’d keep any quotes or publications anonymous, you could be an unnamed source from within the police.” She turned away from the phone again. “Could we do that?” he heard, called out to the rest of the group that had hailed him (as _‘Leblanc’s cop boyfriend’?)_. He heard an indistinguishable chorus, and then Bahorel returned. “Yeah, we could do that,” she said. “You can’t come to any rallies, but we can let you anonymously sign the petition we were thinking of? Hey–”

            The phone crackled as it was snatched away, and a young man’s calm, convicted voice came on.

            “If you can do it,” he said, “we’d like to start spreading petitions through the police force, gaining as much police support for the movement to indict officers guilty of brutality and deaths in custody, especially of Aboriginal victims. Do you have some sort of corkboard or communal area at the station house?”

            Javert’s hand was trembling on the phone.

            “It’s risky,” was all he said.

            “But could you do it?”

            Javert closed his eyes again. He had failed on this front before – many, many times, in fact – but he thought of Jean’s strength, and the bright, swelling joy in his voice when he’d told Javert that he could be a good police officer. He would be good; he would be strong; he would be just; even if it would only be so he would not disappoint Jean Valjean.

            “I can leave a petition form with reception,” he said. “And put one up in the kitchen. I’m not sure it will help, though.”

            “We’ll take all we can get,” said the young man. Javert bristled.

            “Who is this?” he asked.

            “Sorry,” said the boy – “Combeferre. I’m one of Cosette’s friends.”

 _Combeferre._ Javert knew many of Cosette’s friends by sight but not name, and wondered which one this was.

            “If you draw up a template for me,” said Javert, “I can put some up in the station and hope for the best. _But I warn you,”_ he added, before Combeferre could speak – “I don’t have high hopes.”

            Combeferre, he was sure, would be smiling.

            “Thank you, Inspector,” he said. “We’ll probably have a meeting at Madeleine’s about it tomorrow afternoon – could you meet us there and I’ll hand over the petition?”

            Javert nodded to himself. “I work a half shift on Saturdays,” he said, “so I can finish after lunch. I’ll be there around two o’clock, if that suits you.”

            “That suits us fine,” Combeferre said. “Thank you again.”

            In the background, Javert heard Bahorel shout _“Thanks mate!”_ , followed by a little chorus of cheers. He refused to smile at that; he was too nervous to smile.

            “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, finally tearing his hand away from carding back and forth through his sideburns – and hung up.

            He realised he was terrified, and pushed the sensation away.

 

            At two o’clock the next day, Javert sat down for coffee in the corner table at Madeleine’s, and found himself joined by a little gaggle of Cosette’s friends, all yapping and signing at once. He shut his eyes hard, and buried his face in his hands.

            “All right, all right, _all right –”_ he cried, and held up one hand. “Please keep this brief.”

            Bahorel stepped out of the group and plunked herself in the chair across from him, while a Polynesian boy in wide glasses and soft jumpers over rounded hips pulled a chair from a nearby empty table and sat down, lowering his backpack to the floor, as the white one with the artfully-messy hair chivvied the rest away. The boy drew a manila folder from his bag while Bahorel grinned.

            “Combeferre, hi,” the boy said, holding out his hand over the table. There was something soft and absolute about him which Javert couldn’t help but admire as he shook his hand.

            “Well, this is weird isn’t it?” Bahorel said, all chatter. “How’ve you been Inspector? Mind if I call you John?”

            “You can call me Javert,” he replied, flatly; and then realised that, for once, maybe explaining wouldn’t be so disastrous. He breathed in deep. “‘John’ was a first name given to me by default on the mission where I grew up.”

            He watched the realisation dawn on Bahorel’s face, drawing her expression from shock, to horror, to grim anger.

            “I’m going to fucking murder every single white person on the continent,” she said, and Combeferre tutted.

            “Except Courfeyrac,” he added, all too mild. Bahorel grinned.

            “Except Courfeyrac.”

            At that moment, Combeferre set a clipboard and a slim stack of A4 papers on the table by Javert’s coffee, facing him.

            “Here’s the template for the petition,” he said. “I gave you fifteen copies, just in case. You can put some up in the kitchen you mentioned, and keep the rest at reception; that way people have an option that’s not under the eye of their colleagues. I thought a clipboard might be a good idea for the copies at reception.”

            Javert stared at the unassuming papers. They were headed with a bold title (‘Sign the petition to indict Sr Sgt Hills for manslaughter’) and a short paragraph about the old charges and recent suspension, followed by an empty table with columns for name, rank, address, and signature.

            “Thank you,” he eventually said, swallowing hard. “I’ll drop them off when I pick up my bike.”

            Bahorel lit up. “You ride a bike too?” she asked, far more excited than the idea warranted. Javert remembered having to give her a warning when a driver on King Street clipped her motorbike and she followed him to a stop light and harangued him through the open window of his car.

            “Bicycle,” he clarified.

            “Oh.” Bahorel deflated. “Still, pretty cool though. Very _green.”_

            “Also very cheap,” Javert added. Both Bahorel and Combeferre snorted at him, and Javert felt an answering smile touch his mouth; Bahorel immediately looked concerned.

            “Can you meet me here again on, like, Wednesday?” said Combeferre. “To report on the results of the petition?”

            “I have work until five,” said Javert, “but I usually finish a little later than that. Is six o’clock convenient?”

            “Six is fine.” Combeferre nudged his glasses at one corner. “I have class until five, I can get here pretty fast.”

            Javert nodded. “Six o’clock Wednesday, then. We’re agreed. I’ll bring whatever results I get.”

            “Cool,” Bahorel grinned. “Right then, I have a few interview questions if you could answer them? I’d like to record them for reference, but I promise you won’t be mentioned by name or rank or jurisdiction or anything. You’ll probably just be _an anonymous source within the upper ranks of the New South Wales Police Force_ or something. I can send you anything I write before publishing it. Speaking of – email address?”

            Javert nodded, and scribbled his personal email address on a corner of Combeferre’s notebook; then Bahorel pulled out her phone, and set it to record, and Javert began to defame the institution to which he owed everything he was.

            It was frightening, and thrilling, and dangerous, and it was, above all – he was absolutely certain – _just._

 

            Javert technically had Sundays off, but he usually went in to the station on the way to buying groceries, to clear up loose threads from the previous week, or if he had a case currently in progress. That Sunday, after meeting with Bahorel and Combeferre, he ostensibly stopped by the station to pick up some files. He avoided Madeleine’s; but, at the front desk, he dropped his bike and unslung his backpack from one shoulder, rummaging in it for the clipboard. He had been weak the day before, breezing past to fetch his bike and looking straight ahead, as if he wore blinders; again, now, his heart was hammering, and he didn’t quite feel like he was taking whole breaths. The receptionist – her name tag said ‘Natasha’ – watched the scene with surreptitious, curious eyes, until Javert dropped the clipboard and papers Combeferre had given him on the counter, and she frowned. She opened her mouth to speak, but Javert cut her off.

            “If anybody asks,” he said, “it wasn’t me that put this here.”

            Natasha glared at him for that, and stood, twisting the clipboard around so she could read it. Her eyes went wide at the title.

            “Hang on,” she said – “what?”

 _“I didn’t put this here,”_ Javert insisted, and tried for an imploring look. She had to understand the importance of the gesture, and the danger it posed, but he also had to be very _non-specific._

            Natasha was staring at him.

            “Thank you,” Javert said; and picked up his bike, two sheets still in his bag to pin up in the kitchen.

 

            When he left the station that afternoon, there was one row of the petition at reception already filled out. It read: _Fiona Dubois – Constable – 60 Neville St, Marrickville –_ followed by a scribbled signature, all slashing lines followed by wide, circling strokes.

 

* * *

 

            On Tuesday, when Javert stopped by the station for his lunch break, he checked the petition on the kitchen corkboard. There was one signature – a constable Javert had only rarely worked with before – and, on top of it all, in big, red marks, two lines crossed through Combeferre’s carefully-aligned table, and the words ‘NO SNITCHES ALLOWED’. The second sheet – without a single signature – had been defaced in the same handwriting, proclaiming ‘WE STAND TOGETHER - PROTECT YOUR BROTHERS’.

            Javert tore the papers down, stuffed them in his pocket, and marched back to his office without his lunch.

 

 _“There,”_ Javert spat, as he slapped the papers down on the table in front of Combeferre on Wednesday evening. “There are your _results.”_

            Combeferre put down his coffee and stared at the papers, before calmly smoothing them out and lifting the first one in his fingers. He was sitting with three others – Cosette; the bright-eyed, Chinese leader of the pack; and one other, a bald, Singaporean girl with hearing aids. Cosette and the leader looked up; the other ignored them, ensconced in her textbook.

            “Hang on,” said the boy, “you actually got him to do it?”

            “I told you,” Combeferre said, still looking at the papers, “he agreed to an anonymous interview for Bahorel, and to put the petitions up in the station.”

            “Yeah, he _agreed_ to it,” the other snapped, “doesn’t mean he necessarily _did_ it. All cops are bastards, remember?”

            “I really think,” Javert fumed through his teeth, “that you are missing the point.”

            “Javert’s right,” Cosette butted in, “this isn’t a good sign.”

            “It gives us something to work with,” Combeferre mused, as he finally put down the defaced petitions and pulled a notebook out from under the rest of the mess on the table. “We have an idea of what police resistance to the movement for accountability looks like, and an act like this can be used to drum up awareness, get people talking.”

            “Who would honestly dare to do something like this?” Cosette sighed. “And when _Javert_ was the one to put it up, gosh, even other cops are afraid of him.”

            Javert rolled his eyes. “They don’t know _I_ put them up,” he scoffed. The leader of the kids, formerly stoic, almost snapped his own neck throwing a sharp glance at Javert.

            “Why not?” he said.

            Javert glared at the boy.

            “It’s too risky,” was all he said.

            “Risky?” the boy repeated. “What the hell are you risking? That others might actually take this campaign seriously if someone like you puts their name to it? Or are you still uncomfortable with the idea that the institution needs taking down from inside _and_ out?”

            Javert’s lip was curling over his teeth, the snarl of a wounded wolf.

            “I’m risking my _job,”_ he seethed; but the boy only looked even fiercer at that.

 _“So?”_ he cried. _“Your job_ is nothing, not compared to the hundreds of lives that are impacted and _lost_ at the hands of the same violent institution that you uphold!”

            “Enjolras, please –” Combeferre tried to interrupt, but the boy – _Enjolras,_ Javert now knew – was on a roll.

            “The fewer cops the better,” he proclaimed, “and if it’s because they’ve been dismissed on the grounds of actually trying to protect people, well then what the hell are you waiting for? Why _not_ martyr yourself for this? Fired for trying to punish the guilty and protect the innocent, on _blatantly_ racist grounds, trying to prove the corruption of the very system you were a part of – the statement you make with that could change _lives,_ change the world! And you’re concerned about keeping your _job?”_

            Where before Javert had been facing Combeferre, with Enjolras at his side, now he turned head-on to the furious boy, seething, mouth curling, eyes blazing; and Enjolras remained indignantly oblivious.

            “Enjolras,” said Combeferre, very calmly, as if he had said this a hundred times before, “do I need to call Feuilly to remind you about intersections of class?”

            Enjolras’ eyes snapped to his friend; and, at the look on Combeferre’s plain and downturned face, immediately sobered.

            “Feuilly’s preparing the food orders for the open Shabbat dinner,” he said; but the point had clearly been conceded. He looked up at Javert. “I apologise. I was insensitive. I sometimes need reminding of my own privilege.”

            Cosette gave the kid an indulgent smile.

            “Well done,” she said, patting his hand on the table.

            “Were these from the same place?” Combeferre asked Javert, putting the incident effectively behind them.

            “Yes,” Javert answered, turning back to him, “both from the kitchen. I suppose it’s too embarrassing an act to do close to the public. As far as I saw, the lists at reception haven’t been touched except to be signed.”

            “And how many signatures are there?” Cosette asked, far too eager. Javert looked at her, a part of him loathe to disappoint her optimism.

            “One.”

            All three faces in the conversation at the table fell.

            “Just the one?” asked Enjolras, sounding heartbroken.

            “A constable I know, just off probation,” Javert shrugged. “She’s shown promise.”

            Combeferre was looking at the table, and the ruined petitions there.

            “I need to call Bahorel,” he said. “This is her concern more than anyone’s. For now, if you could take one of the spare sheets at reception and put it back up in the kitchen, that would be helpful. At least as a show of defiance to whoever did this.”

            “Senior Constable Drake,” Javert replied, low and automatic. One of Combeferre’s eyebrows rose; both of Enjolras’ shot up.

            “You _know_ who did it?” said Cosette.

            “I recognise the handwriting,” Javert said, with another shrug. “There’s nothing I can do about it without putting myself at risk, and confronting or accusing him would only make matters worse.”

            Combeferre was nodding.

            “Put a sheet back up in the kitchen,” he repeated. “We’ll try to think of another approach. I’ll talk to Bahorel and have her email you in the next couple days.”

            Javert nodded; and the meeting was over. He looked across at Cosette.

            “Where’s your father?”

            She smiled at him, indulgent and broad. “Upstairs,” she said. “I’ll go get him.”

            Javert remembered what Bahorel had called him to the others, and felt his stomach swoop with humiliation. “There’s no need,” he snapped, as Cosette stood, “I was just wondering –”

            “I’ll get him, Inspector,” she sang, and waltzed away, slipping around the curtain to the back room with a wave to Azelma behind the counter. Combeferre was smiling far too pleasantly up at Javert, while Enjolras glanced between them with a look of consternation on his face.

            “What,” he said askance, “what it is, what’s going on.”

            “It’s an allo thing,” Combeferre replied, taking his eyes off Javert and sending that same pleasant smile at Enjolras, a little brighter now. Enjolras rolled his eyes.

            “It’s not,” said Javert, automatically correcting the assumption; and regretted the words as soon as Enjolras and Combeferre’s faces turns back to him, wide with suspicious surprise. His face fell. “Only,” he stammered out – “unless the aromantic community uses the prefix too? I’m not sure, I only…”

            The whole situation was getting very swiftly out of hand. He shut his mouth.

            “Inspector Javert,” Enjolras asked, almost breathless with righteous excitement, “are you _asexual?”_

            “That is absolutely none of your concern,” Javert snapped; then jumped as he felt as much as heard Jean’s warm voice behind him.

            “Javert,” Jean spoke as he approached, “I heard the petitions didn’t go well. What happened?”

            He stood beside Javert with a hand on the inspector’s back, and Javert wanted to sink into the floor and disappear as Cosette sat back down across from him with a blissful expression.

            “Good evening,” Javert mumbled, defiantly meeting Jean’s gaze.

            “Come on,” Jean sighed, “let me make you a coffee and we can talk about it.” He turned and headed for the counter, as Javert rolled his eyes and forgot about the embarrassed heat in his face, along with Cosette and her friends who had started frantically signing to their Singaporean friend about what she missed when she turned her hearing aids off.

            “All right,” he grumbled, “but I am _paying_ this time…”

 

* * *

 

            The station house kitchen was usually at least half-full around noon. Javert had set up the replacement petitions as early as he could on Thursday morning, but still he had been plagued by the paranoia of being caught by another officer. He had rarely, before, been suspicious of the saying “if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear”: now he knew the falseness of it with uncomfortable intimacy.

            Friday, then, brought the jittery nervousness of having to check on the damn thing. He pulled into the station garage after a morning of gathering witness statements, leaving the car behind with his usual checks and his hands clasped resolutely behind his back. There was a turkey sandwich he’d made that morning in the station fridge, Jean would probably do something ridiculous when he went to get coffee, and, he told himself, everything was going to be just as it always was.

            One passing glance was enough to tell him that the petition in the kitchen had gone untouched, by both agreeing and dissenting hands. The snort of laughter that came from one of the tables, however, was less ambiguous. Distracted, he couldn’t tell which of the six people settled there it had come from, but he was leaning towards it being one of the group of four constables at the centre table. He ignored them, and crossed to the fridge.

            “Here he comes,” someone sneered. “The _sympathiser._ Make any arrests today, mate, or did you not want to _offend_ anyone?”

            Javert, sandwich in hand, straightened up and shut the fridge, and looked over at the group. Two of the constables immediately averted their eyes, and Javert felt a slight thrill of satisfaction thaw the ice in his chest.

            “You should make it more clear whom you’re trying to address, Constable Williams,” he said to the room at large. “Vague statements of insult won’t get you far when there’s a gun pointed at your chest.”

            He watched as Williams – small, blonde, and bulky – clenched her fists on the tabletop, mouth tight. Then suddenly, she was standing, pushing back her chair and glaring across the room.

            “I _said,”_ she snapped, “you’re a _sympathiser. Inspector._ As if we don’t know who put those fucking _petitions_ up,” she added, nodding at the corkboard by the door, “who else would it be but the only abo in the force?”

            The constable at her elbow – Collins, with a wide face, dark features, and eyes almost as mean as Williams’ – scoffed another laugh.

            “Going soft,” he muttered at the table. Javert was tense from shoulders to toes, and he took a step forward, advancing on the centre table. The other officers in the room had gone deadly quiet.

            “Would you like to repeat that, Constable Collins?” he said, low and measured, and Collins, though his voice was shaking, spat back:

            “Oh yeah, the fearsome _Inspector Javert,_ that everyone warns you about – don’t see what the fuss is, now. You’re _going soft._ They’re gonna have to put you down soon.”

            There was nothing Javert could do about it. There was no law against being insulting, but ever since he’d made sergeant, he’d only rarely had to deal with this kind of language, and when he had, he’d had his rank, his power, his authority behind him. Now, however – now there was no defence, not when Williams had stood up and insulted him, and Collins had spoken his rank without a trace of deference.

            Javert simply turned towards the doorway.

            “Oh, that’s right,” Williams called at his back, “go running off to your boyfriend in the café, you old fag, we know what your priorities are.”

            Javert’s feet stilled mid-step, his back and core going tight, eyes resting unseeing on the opposite wall in the corridor outside. He let out a long breath through his nose, and as he turned, he pulled his shoulders back, utilising the height and lined glare which had so often effortlessly won out against civilians, cops, and criminals alike. He stepped up to the table, and eyed each constable there in turn. Only Williams, lifting her chin, met his eye. He did not speak to her first.

            “Constable Collins,” he said, low, calm, and irrefutable – “was that a threat?”

            Collins glanced briefly up at him, with a breathless attempt at a laugh. “What?”

 _“They’re going to have to put you down soon,”_ Javert enunciated, “your exact words. That sounded like a threat.”

            Collins forced out another laugh. “No, course not,” he snorted, “it was just –”

            He fell silent.

            “Just what?” asked Javert. When no answer came, he nodded once. “As I thought. I hope you enjoy holding duty, Constable Collins, because you’ll be doing it every day for the next week.”

            Collins’ mouth dropped open, but Javert ignored him, shifting his gaze up to Williams’ curled lip.

            “As for you, Constable Williams,” he drawled, “racist and homophobic language are not tolerated by the New South Wales Police Force. You will be reassigned to traffic patrols every shift for a fortnight, and I will be informing Inspector Ramachandran of your behaviour. Perhaps she will decide that sensitivity training may be necessary to bring you up to the standards expected of a police officer.”

            Williams, caught between fuming and sulking, dropped back into her chair. Javert nodded once more.

            “Good afternoon, Constables.”

            The walk out through the corridor, down the stairs, and out of the station house seemed both interminable and infinitesimal, slipping past without his notice. He didn’t realise how tightly his fists were clenched until he remembered the sandwich in his hand, and looked down to find one edge crushed under the plastic wrap. He took a deep breath at the curb, looked both ways, and crossed, diving resolutely into Madeleine’s.

            Someone he didn’t recognise was behind the counter – some new friend of Gavroche Thénardier’s, he supposed, or a youth in need of a job whom Jean had spotted on the street – and he faltered. The kid smiled at him, by rote, and asked what he wanted, and Javert, inexplicably, froze. There was something stuck in his throat, some quick-drying glue on his shoes, which stopped the words building up in him and held him back two steps from the counter. Something quivered in his belly; the new worker was starting to frown.

            “Jean,” he blurted out. “Where’s Jean?”

            The kid looked relieved, sighing surreptitiously and running a hand through their dark hair.

            “Mr Fauchelevent’s not here,” they said. “He got delayed this morning, I think, something to do with a burnt batch of cookies, so he’s gone out a little late to give away yesterday’s leftovers. Can I help you in the meantime, or…”

            He needed Jean. He needed Jean’s patient smile and gentle confidence, to tell him that he hadn’t overstepped in punishing the constables with boring duties for what were, really, only words, a few verbal insults which were, after all, hardly inaccurate, and he _was_ going soft, wasn’t he, so it made sense for the other officers to notice it. The petition had been a stupid idea, all because of those overly-optimistic friends of Cosette’s, but if they cost him his job he would never survive another week, if they cost him the respect of his officers, how would ever get any work done again –

            “Oh hi, Inspector!” someone was shouting as they approached. “Sorry about this, Kate, old friend – just an espresso for him please, he’ll pay after, it’s fine –” A hand on his elbow, steering him away through the crowded café. “Sit down with me, Inspector, tell me _all_ about your day…”

            And then he was sitting at a table, halfway between the counter and the back wall, facing away from the window and across from Robin Grantaire, who snapped shut a notebook with the pencil inside and leaned across the little table to hiss:

            “What the _fuck_ is going on?”

            Javert blinked, and refocused.

            “I need to talk to Jean.”

            “Oh right, sure, that’s all,” said Grantaire, rolling their eyes. “Just wanna talk to the manager do we? What the fuck’s happened?”

            Javert sneered. “Nothing’s _happened –”_

            “Right, that’s why you walked in looking like a rabbit in the headlights then practically had a panic attack when you found out Leblanc’s not here,” Grantaire rambled, “seriously, I’m not a fucking idiot.”

            Javert sniffed, and said, “I’m not talking about this with you,” even as Grantaire’s eye-rolling increased.

            “I get it,” they drawled, “you only wanna talk to your dumb crush, whatever –” Javert startled at the kid’s easy assumption, but was talked over – “but please, for fuck’s sake, something has clearly gone down and you’re not okay. Have you been attacked? Is this about what happened in May, because I don’t know any of the details, but Gav seemed pretty sure you were fucked up by something –”

            Javert, horrified, inched back, face falling. “How the hell do you know –”

            But Grantaire was talking right over him.

            “Or is it about the petition thing? Because I know E hasn’t been working with you directly but for fuck’s sake, even Ferre can be a lot to handle when he’s set on something, if he’s been pushing you to do something you’re not comfortable with then fuck knows I’ve been there –”

            Javert closed his eyes and held out a hand over the table, trying desperately to stem the flood of words. _“I just,”_ he said, raising his voice and silencing Grantaire’s chatter – “need to talk to Jean. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

            Grantaire pursed their lips; then leaned back in their chair, all trace of concern gone from their figure which now slumped into nothingness, all sloping shoulders and sprawling limbs, and a cold cup of tea in their stubby fingers. Their dark, coiled hair fell, unwashed and messy, over their brow, and they shrugged with an ugly sniff.

            “Probably soon,” they said into the tea, taking a sip and scrunching their nose at the taste. “He left, like, over an hour ago, it doesn’t usually take much longer than that. Your coffee’s ready by the way.”

            At the counter, Kate was setting down an espresso and calling out for “R”. Javert shoved himself up from the table, ignoring Grantaire’s smirk, and claimed his coffee, retreating to an empty chair near the window. He ate his sandwich while he waited, promptly forgetting the coffee, and dwelling instead on the shaky feeling in his legs and the way Williams had so unquestioningly insulted him.

            Only a year earlier, it would never have happened. They were all either too afraid, or too disinterested, to talk about him like that. He wanted to wonder what had changed, but couldn’t find the strength to lie to himself. He knew well enough.

            He hadn’t brought any work with him. With his sandwich finished, he fished the coins out of his pocket and started on the coffee, counting out two dollars fifty with steady fingers. As he finished stacking them in a little pile beside his saucer, ordered by size, he noticed movement by the door, and looked up in time to watch Jean Valjean talk to Kate and unwind a scarf from around his neck and chin, revealing his beard and smile bit by bit. Kate pointed at his table, and Jean looked over, smile morphing into something full of creased worry, and as if by instinct, Javert found himself rising to his feet and staring at Jean as the rest of the day – Williams and Collins and Grantaire and his half-crushed sandwich – faded into nothingness in the distraction of Jean’s approach and the breathlessness it inspired.

            “Sit down, Javert,” Jean murmured, and though it was never an order, Javert obeyed.

            “They know it was me,” he said, without preamble. “The petition, they know it was me.”

            Jean pressed his lips together and sighed sadly. “I’m afraid it was to be expected,” he said, all sympathy. “They are police officers after all…”

            Javert shook his head, jaw trembling for a moment. “No, no you don’t understand,” he stuttered out, “they know it was me, they insulted me in the kitchen just now, they called me –”

            Already Jean was leaning closer, arms on the table and dark, soft eyes going liquid under creasing, angry brows.

            “I knew Williams could be a little shit sometimes,” Javert was snapping, almost rambling, “but she called me _abo_ and _fag,_ Collins said I was _going soft_ – I’m going to speak to Ramachandran and get them reassigned to holding and traffic duties but am I overreacting? They’ve always said this, always, ever since I started training, what does it matter now?” He scoffed at himself. “I never needed their _respect_ to do my job.”

            Jean’s face fell along with his shoulders, and if Javert had thought his eyes were soft before, now they were practically liquid, a sweet, dark gaze amongst his tanned skin and white, bright hair and beard.

            “But it helped,” he said softly, “didn’t it?”

            Javert stared at him, and the easy, generous kindness of him, the understanding that seemed to come so gracefully to the same man who’d once started prison riots and fought dirty and spat slurs and threats at guards who would beat him for his insolence. Javert remembered that man all too vividly: the way it took four guards to overcome his immense strength, the embers of his anger always ready to ignite into an inferno, the snarling mouth and dark stubble and the quick violence of his limbs. Yet here before him sat the same man, decades later, extending kindness to someone who’d struck and subdued him, humiliated him in the way only an institutional servant could. Here sat Jean Valjean, now Fauchelevent – Mr Madeleine, Leblanc, _Jean_ – who offered understanding and softness as easily as coins and food; as easily as he’d once handed out blows.

            Javert was captivated by every part of him.

            “Did I do the right thing?” he asked. “Did they deserve punishment?”

            Jean huffed something halfway between a laugh and a sigh, shrugging as he sat a little further back in his chair. “Punishment?” he repeated. “No. But they were very cruel, and knowingly so. I don’t know anything about police hierarchies, but no one should say those things to another person. They do need to learn that, and learn why.”

            “Their actions have consequences,” Javert muttered, and took a little breath, sighing it out and looking down at the table. “Not everyone’s as kind as you, Jean.”

            Jean chuckled, and joined Javert in lowering his gaze. “I’m not _that_ kind,” he replied, all bashful humility. “You of all people should know that.”

            “Doesn’t that make your kindness even stronger?” Javert asked the empty coffee glass. “You weren’t always like this, and now it comes to you so easily.”

            “It isn’t always easy,” said Jean, quietly, as if imparting a secret. “Patience and self-control are things I had to work at. If it weren’t for the rabbi who helped me…”

            Javert snorted. “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, dismantling the pile of coins on the table. “It’s just as dishonest to downplay a virtue as it is to ignore a vice.”

            “Ah yes,” Jean smiled, “Inspector Javert and his infamous honesty. Do _you_ think you did the right thing, then?”

            Javert’s amusement seeped away. “Williams was basically right,” he said, almost under his breath, restacking the coins. “I _am_ an abo. And I may as well be a fag.” Something shivered in his chest at the admission. “At least you can’t fault her accuracy.”

            Jean’s expression had gone hard. “That’s no excuse,” he said, in a low voice. Javert sighed, conceding the point, and gave himself a moment.

            “I think I did,” he said. “I don’t know if I deserve a defence, but at least I know they deserve a rebuke.”

            “Of course you deserve a defence, Javert.”

            Jean’s hands were dangerously close to his over the table, and he curled his fingers in on his palms, away from the threat of contact. He knew what those hands felt like on his skin, and it was knowledge he had no right to, despite how easily Jean offered it.

            “There’s no evidence that I’m involved in the petition,” Javert said, drawing himself up. “Not unless someone decides to dredge up the security camera footage from the station.”

            “But then, people like that rarely need hard evidence,” said Jean, “do they?”

            Javert nodded to one side. “Point granted,” he said. “Still. Even if it does get back to the commissioner, it’s not enough to get me fired. It can’t be.”

            Jean’s smile was blooming again. “That’s the spirit.”

            Suddenly, there was a body at their sides, and a stained hand snatching up the coins on the table, and Javert nearly jumped out of his seat.

            “Kate’s getting antsy about payment,” Grantaire was saying smoothly, as they dropped Javert’s rubbish into his empty cup and lifted the saucer in their free hand. “She’s new, she’ll learn how weird you both are soon enough.”

            They flashed a wide grin at them and sauntered off to the counter with Javert’s cup and change. Jean watched them go with a question in his brow, but when he turned back to Javert, it morphed into a laugh, which Javert was helpless not to join, suppressing the widest limits of his smile.

            “When do you have to go back to work?” Jean asked, and Javert checked his watch.

            “I still have about half an hour,” he said, and met Jean’s smiling eye. “I don’t want to talk to you about my day,” he said, straight-faced, “but I’m sure you have plenty to say about yours.”

            Jean shrugged. “Only if you’re interested in hearing about it –”

            “Out with it, Jean,” Javert commanded, “I don’t mind.”

            Jean, mercifully, knew the difference by now between a reluctant concession and an awkwardly sincere one. For half an hour, there was only homeless shelters, and Jehan’s new gluten-free muffin recipe, and the dogs Jean had seen on his morning run with Cosette, and Javert could momentarily forget the way his stomach dropped at a constable’s insults.

  

* * *

 

 

            When Javert returned from the scene of a homicide in the morning, bristling and hungry, he found one of the constables waiting in his office.

            “Yes?” he snapped, hanging up his coat and sitting behind his desk to boot up his computer.

            “Good afternoon to you too, Inspector Javert,” she said, stepping up to stand across the desk from him, at parade rest. Javert shrugged, scooting his chair in and rifling through his in-tray.

            “What is it, Constable?”

            She smiled at him, wry and small.

            “Dubois, sir,” she said, “Constable Dubois. I was on probation here –”

            “Yes, I know you,” Javert drawled, cutting her off. “You’re responsible for half the station going to _Madeleine’s_ for coffee. What did you need?”

            “All due respect, sir,” Dubois said, smirking, “that was _your_ words recommended it. I was only passing on the news.”

            Javert narrowed his eyes at her expression, and finally abandoned his harried work to focus on her. At the change, Dubois lifted her chin, and pulled one hand from behind her back. There was a sheet of paper in it, a little crumpled at the edges from wear, and creased with writing.

            “Thought you might like to see this,” she said, as Javert reached cautiously over the desk to take the sheet. “Technically they’re not all from our command, but I think I got enough friends and friends of friends together to make a point. Didn’t know whether to put it back up in reception or in the kitchen, so I guess it’s up to you.”

            Javert stared, barely hearing her. In his hands, he held one of Combeferre’s petition lists, the one he had left at the front desk and which, for so long, he had only ever seen with Dubois’ signature on it, alone. Now, the page was filled with writing: fifteen rows crammed with fifteen different hands – mostly constables, some senior constables, one leading senior constable – completing the table that had for so long stood empty.

            Javert stared, and did not speak.

            “… Sir?” Dubois eventually said into the unnerving silence. “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t put your name to the petition, but we all know it was you. I’ve seen you checking them. I just wanted to help…”

            With a swallow and a clearing of his throat, Javert cut her off.

            “Thank you, Constable Dubois,” he said, still staring at the petition. “I’d like to…” He had no idea how to proceed, but he knew that putting the page back on display would only invite its defacement. Bahorel would want to see it; Combeferre would probably take photocopies of it for records. He swallowed again.

            “Is it all right?” Dubois asked, and Javert looked up at her sharply, all wonder and rebuke.

            “Of course it’s all right,” he babbled, “it’s more than all right. Dubois –” He looked again at the innocuous sheet of paper, with fifteen signatures of support. It was paltry, he knew; but it was more than nothing, and that, even in face of all the odds against them, was still a gift. “Thank you, Constable,” he finally finished. “You’ve gone above and beyond your duty. I wish I could reward you properly.”

            Dubois shrugged, a cheery, dismissive gesture. “No worries, sir,” she said. “Just doing what I can to help.”

            Javert looked at her, and though he wasn’t smiling, he knew from Dubois’s slightly bemused grin that she could see the approval in his eyes.

            “You’re shaping up, Constable Dubois,” he said. “I hope to see you utilise this potential in your future career.”

            Dubois said nothing, brimming with giddy pride. Javert glanced again at the sheet in his hand, and back up at her.

            “Thank you, Constable,” he repeated. “Return to your duties, now.”

            “Thanks, Inspector,” Dubois trilled, half in a laugh; and span on her heel, practically skipping out of Javert’s office. There was a container of leftover soup in the kitchen fridge with Javert’s name written on the lid, but he was no longer hungry; in his lunch break, he typed up an email to Bahorel and Combeferre with a scan of the petition page attached, arranging to meet in the next few days, then emailed the superintendents of each Local Area Command Dubois’s friends were from, informing them of the movement and asking permission to put up petitions in their station houses.

            He used his personal email instead of his work one, and took an exuberant call from Bahorel on his mobile; and what the commissioner didn’t know, couldn’t hurt him.

 

            When Javert told Jean about Dubois’s efforts the next morning, Jean’s face shone with an irresistible, warm grin, which inspired in Javert a desperate need to avert it before something disastrous happened. Just what, he couldn’t say; but he knew that he feared it, and he briskly diverted the conversation towards the smallness of the victory, the vast amount of work still ahead of them, and the continuing unlikeliness of their success, as he swallowed his espresso in one. But Jean merely grinned, and fetched Javert another coffee, protesting that it was on the house and drawing Javert’s eyes to the lines of his back, hips, and elbows as he walked away, causing Javert to loose a quiet, wistful sigh to himself. Though the situation was becoming untenable, he could muster neither the courage nor the strength to stop it.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_July 28_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac, Jiemba Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        oooooohhhh boy has dad got it bad

                        d’you know what he did today

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        okay but i have literally seen cop bf sigh wistfully as he leaves the shop and therefore the almighty bright presence of the love of his life, so

                        beat that

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        he came upstairs after the shutting the shop and i was doing readings in the living room and he literally just stands at the top of the stairs and says “i hope javert’s looking after himself”

                        like where the heck did that come from

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        did he proceed to send javert a text saying “thinking of u <3 xoxo”

                        bc that is clearly the next obvious step

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ahaha, no i don’t think so

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Oh my god that is so cute

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Don’t know if it beats R’s story though

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yessssssssssssssssssssssssss VINDICATION, THANK U

                        WHAT’S THE BLESSING FOR THAT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        not yet it doesn’t

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        !!!!!

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        holy shit what does that mean

                        a challenger appears

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i kept him talking by saying that javert’s a grown man who’s kept himself alive for fifty years or however old he is and dad started talking about how he knows javert sometimes skips meals and doesn’t sleep and i managed to take a sneaky photo over the back of the sofa

 

                         _[A blurry phone photograph of Jean Fauchelevent, standing at the top of a staircase in a brightly-lit living room, with his arms crossed and a distracted expression of wistful concern on his face.]_

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        That is possibly the most adorable photo I’ve ever seen

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        I AM AGOG I AM AGHAST I AM DEAD AND GONE

                        COSETTE

                        IS UR DAD A LITERAL ANGEL

                        oh my gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooodddddddddddd please send this to javert

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        what?? no!!!! omg R i could never

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Haha I don’t think it’d be a very safe thing to do anyway, you might kill the poor man

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Yeah R, where’s your compassion

                        :)

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        compassion is not an option until these two get their shit together and make out already

                        it is written in the stars, i will not rest until they have achieved their romantic destiny

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        sweet but creepy, R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        #aesthetic

 

* * *

 

            Between his late night combing through security footage for any sign of the ice manufacturer his sergeants were after, and having to leave before six to meet Feuilly and hand over the filled petition before Shacharit, Javert stalked into Madeleine’s early Friday morning in a particularly bad mood. If his nose hadn’t been as large as it was, it would’ve gotten lost somewhere between his scowling, lowered brow and his pursed lips, and Jean’s face visibly fell at the sight of him prowling into the shop.

            “Javert…?” he said, soft and careful. “Is everything all right?”

            “I need coffee,” he muttered as he reached the counter and finally started to relax, plucking his wallet from his pocket. “Strong, strong… uh –”

            “Double-shot macchiato, maybe?” Jean offered, and Javert grunted.

            “God, make it a latte,” he groaned. “And take-away, too, I’ve got work to do. Fuck, I’m too tired for this shit.”

            Jean’s face was creasing with concern. “Javert, how much _sleep_ did you get last night?”

            Javert shrugged as he handed over a ten dollar note. “A few hours?” he said. “It wouldn’t matter so much if it hadn’t been such a _frustrating night,_ and I’ve spent the last few days trying to catch up with all the fucking traffic incidents and mugging reports I need to fill out… _fuck.”_ He held out his hand – sighing at his own indignation – for his change, and had nearly pocketed it before he narrowed his eyes at the note and coins in his hand. “You’ve undercharged me,” he growled, an accusation which fell utterly flat in the face of Jean’s fond, exasperated smile. _“Again.”_

            “Think of it as a gift,” Jean soothed. “A concession to your horrible morning so far. Sugar?”

            Javert rolled his eyes. “I’m not _that_ far gone, Jean,” he drawled, and flopped into a chair at the back of the almost deserted shop while he half-dozed and waited for his drink.

 

            He took his coffee back to his office. Shedding his coat, and with a new constable at his heels, Javert sat down with the cup behind his desk, and looked up at the woman who’d entered behind him.

            “What is it, Dubois?” he demanded, as he scooted in his chair and booted up his computer.

            “And a good morning to you too, Inspector,” she said, smirking. Javert rolled his eyes.

            “Good morning, Constable Dubois,” he grumbled, as he set down his coffee and began to carefully prise off the lid. _“What is it?”_

            Dubois was still smiling. “Passing on a report to you, sir, from yesterday, didn’t have a chance before you left.”

            She held out a slim file; but Javert did not take it. He didn’t even look up. Instead, one hand still held the lid of his coffee aloft, and the other was curled around the base of the cup, and he was staring into the foam as if he could read his future there.

            “Sir?” said Dubois, with great care. “It’s about yesterday’s incident with the gate-hoppers at…”

            Javert was clearly not listening.

            “Inspector Javert?”

            “I’m very sorry,” he said, quite blandly, “but I think I’m having a heart attack.”

            Dubois glanced down at the coffee on his desk; and saw painted in the foam – slightly blurred from the trip across the road and up the stairs, but still clear – a little love heart, surrounded by a circle of stars. As Dubois watched, Javert let out a low, dismayed moan, and leaned forward until his head thumped against the surface of his desk.

            “I’m having a heart attack,” he repeated. “This is it. This must be it.”

            “Inspector,” Dubois smiled, “you’re not having a heart attack.”

            “How else do you explain it?” Javert groaned. “I have all the symptoms. Pain and tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, sweating, nausea –”

            “Sir, you are _not_ having a heart attack,” Dubois assured him. “It’s just a crush.”

 _“What?”_ Javert snapped, looking up at her in flustered outrage. _“Me? I –_ I don’t have –”

            He was still holding the coffee lid in his right hand.

            “I _do not_ have –”

            Dubois only sighed at him through her nose.

            “Inspector, this is my report on the gate-hopping incident at Newtown Station last night,” Dubois talked over him. “I recommend that you read it, drink your coffee, and then go down and tell Mr Madeleine that you’re in love with him.”

            “His name isn’t Madeleine,” Javert corrected her.

            “Oh!” she said. “I always just assumed the café was named after him. What’s his name then?”

            Javert hesitated for just a second.

            “Fauchelevent,” he said. “Jean Fauchelevent.”

            Dubois smirked at him again. “Well then, Inspector,” she said, “I recommend that you read my report, drink your coffee, and then go down and tell Mr _Fauchelevent_ that you’re in love with him. You’ll feel better for it.”

            Slowly, carefully, Javert lowered the lid in his hand to the tabletop. He leaned forward, and took the report from Dubois’ once-more-outstretched hand. While both of them still held onto it, he opened his mouth.

            “You will speak of this,” he said, in a low growl, “to _no one.”_

            Dubois let go of the folder, mimed zipping up her lips, then broke the illusion by grinning right through them.

            “Not a soul, sir,” she said. Her expression sobered for just a moment. “Promise.”

            Javert nodded once in dismissal, and sat back, flipping open her report. Dubois, still grinning, turned and left his office just as he picked up the lid of his coffee and began to absently lick the foam from the inside.

 

            Javert avoided going to Madeleine’s for lunch. He worked overtime in the evening, typing away to get the week’s reports well and truly done. By the time he left his office, it was nearly eight o’clock, and the sun was well and truly down. He cleared away his things, packed his saddlebag, changed his shirt, and lugged his bike down the stairs. Outside, he looked across at Madeleine’s. The light was still on, and he could see the shadow of Jean Valjean cleaning tables.

            Javert crossed the road. It was an impulse he was helpless to resist.

            He leaned his bike against the fence and knocked on the door. In the dim lights from without and within, he watched as Jean looked up, saw him, and smiled, broad and joyous. His heart skipped a beat.

            “Javert,” Jean said, still beaming, as he opened the door. “You’re finishing late again. Would you like a drink before you head home?”

            Javert opened his mouth. He hadn’t thought of that.

            “Yes please.”

            Jean chuckled at him as he let him in, and shut the door behind them. “You look like you could use one,” he said, all dry humour and pleasant concern. “Please tell me you intend to get some sleep tonight.”

            Javert’s mouth curled in one corner. “Yes, of course I do,” he drawled. “Sergeant Lam is following down every lead I gave him, and I managed to finish off the reports for the last week. Whatever paperwork I have left to do can wait until tomorrow, at least.”

            Jean was smiling at him as he slipped behind the counter. “Take a seat,” he said, nodding at one of the centre tables which still had some seats left standing right way up. Javert walked where Jean had bidden him, fishing in his pocket for some change, but he was stopped by the clicking of Jean’s tongue.

            “For heaven’s sake, Javert, you don’t have to _pay_ for it.”

            Javert frowned.

            “Don’t argue with me on this Javert, you know you always lose.”

            Javert’s mouth opened in outrage.

            “Anyway, it’s after hours now. This is just a coffee between friends.”

 _Friends._ Javert felt his cheeks go warm, and sat down abruptly at the table. He cleared his throat as the espresso machine began to gurgle.

            “How was your day?” he asked. Jean smiled briefly at him over the machines.

            “Same as usual,” he shrugged. “Cosette has some assignment due soon, she’s starting to get stressed about it, but I’m confident she’ll push through.”

            “Thank you,” Javert blurted. He refused to meet Jean’s eye. “For the, uh – for the – in the coffee, this morning. It was – very sweet.”

            Jean’s smile was blindingly gentle. “I was lucky you finally ordered something with some foam on it,” he said, only half in jest. “I’m glad you saw it.”

            “Yes, I did,” Javert replied. “Thank you.”

            “You already said that.”

            Javert resisted the urge to lower his head to the table. At that moment, Jean approached him, cup and saucer in hand, and placed the coffee on the table in front of Javert. It was an espresso, dark and steaming. Javert stared at it.

            “What’s this?” he said. Jean frowned.

            “Sorry,” he said, “you didn’t specify, but you usually get an espresso. I figured, since you’re about to head home, you wouldn’t want to linger over something bigger and bike home with a belly full of milk.”

            Javert’s heart hurt, like stone cracking under pressure, or dead wood suddenly growing green shoots.

            “Was that presumptuous of me?” Jean asked, and Javert shook his head.

            “No,” he forced out, a little bit hoarse, and cleared his throat. “No, no that’s fine, thank you. It’s fine.”

            “Oh!” Jean sounded far too pleased, not of himself, but _for Javert._ That hurt, too. “Good!” He sat down across the table from Javert and crossed his arms on the surface. “So how was _your_ day?”

            Javert stirred his coffee, and babbled around the confidential details, and tried not to get too lost in Jean’s focused, pleasant face. Constable Dubois had to be wrong about the heart attack; nothing else could possibly explain the tight, straining feeling in his chest when Jean nodded along, and commented on what little Javert could tell him.

 

* * *

 

            Before him stood a bank of students, shouting, stamping, shaking their fists; at his sides, a line of police officers, with riot shields and helmets, facing them down. Even the imminent threat of rain couldn’t keep the rally at bay: despite the rolling clouds above, though the turn-out had been less than predicted, it was still formidable. The students hadn’t escalated anything yet, but Javert was certain it wouldn’t be long before an ill-advised sit-in and an overzealous officer turned things ugly. He kept one eye on the students, and one on his colleagues.

            He wondered whom Jean would have sided with.

            Of course, Jean wasn’t there. Jean was at home, or working in the shop, or distributing leftover muffins and money like alms, or spending time in one of the many community centres – religious or otherwise – he so often frequented. Perhaps he was talking to small-time politicians about homeless shelters and school funding. Perhaps he was making lunch for his daughter.

            Someone jostled his riot shield, held just above his feet in front of him; but the student before him, when he snapped out of his reverie, was already recovering, looking at least a little bashful, and he judged that it was probably only a fall. Someone else, near the back of crowd, was shouting about “fucking cops”, and though Javert was certain he recognised the voice, he would not be riled.

            The sounds of palms and fists smacking against perspex was beginning to grow. Javert had not been the most superior officer at the briefing the previous evening, but he had had enough experience with the university rallies to have been called on to speak. What he had given was the same advice he had always privately followed unless prompted otherwise: “Dig your heels in when they get frustrated, and give no ground. If they get into the road, they’re a danger to themselves, to us, and to motorists and pedestrians, but otherwise, they’re not breaking any laws.”

            Behind him, three cars honked their horns and someone shouted out a car window, whether in solidarity or accusation, it was too hard to tell. Another limb hit his shield, and this time, it was not an accident.

            Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a fumbling at the other end of the curved picket line; an officer’s hand not on shield, but on vest; and a student flinching back.

            “SERGEANT BAILEY!”

            Furious, Javert stepped back out of the line, tearing off his helmet and dragging the constables from either side of him in to hold his shield and position.

_“SERGEANT BAILEY, HOLD BACK YOUR ARM!”_

            He loped along the curb with swift, broad steps which brought him up behind Bailey in time to catch the baton in his hand before it could fall a second time. Amongst the shrieking, raging crowd, he saw someone being led away, blood on a pale face and a cradled wrist, and, without much struggle, wrenched the baton from Bailey’s hand even as he looked back and realised who it was that had stopped him.

            “Sergeant Bailey,” Javert snapped down at him over the increasing roar of the rally, “why have you drawn a weapon?!”

            Bailey’s face – usually, Javert knew, a pleasant, beak-nosed, smiling complexion – was contorted in a half-snarl.

            “They tried to hit me, sir,” he shouted, “I had to get ’em off!”

            “They tried to hit you,” Javert repeated, voice rising over the crowd, “so you hit them back? Have you forgotten that you’re holding a shield, Sergeant Bailey? Have you forgotten your helmet? Answer me!”

            “No, sir!” Bailey gasped, mouth open to reply, but Javert overrode him.

            “Your duty here is not to beat the rally back, Sergeant, but to contain it,” he cried, “as was made perfectly clear in your orders. You _never_ draw your weapon against an unarmed civilian except in the most extreme circumstances, and someone striking you with a fist during a rally _when you are already equipped with defensive gear_ is definitively _not_ an extreme circumstance!”

            “Sir, I was _defending_ myself –”

            “With an offensive weapon?” Javert held aloft the baton like he would evidence of a murder. “I think not. You will leave the line, Sergeant Bailey, and return to your Local Area Command station immediately. You will give a verbal report to your superintendent, describing how you disobeyed orders, drew a weapon on an unarmed civilian, and utilised unreasonable force against an innocent person, and then you will be free to do as you wish. You’re dismissed for the rest of the day.”

            Bailey’s face was falling. _“Inspector –”_ he tried to retort, but Javert was snapping shut his baton and holding it out to him, resting his other hand on the crest of Bailey’s shield.

_“You are dismissed, Sergeant Bailey.”_

            After a long-held moment, and with an open expression of disbelief and despair, Bailey took the baton and stumbled back out of the line, slipping the weapon back into its holster on his vest.

            “Constable Marsh, Constable Ludowyk, fill Sergeant Bailey’s place in line,” Javert ordered the officers at his sides, pulling away Bailey’s shield and watching the space be efficiently replaced by their twin stunned expressions. He turned, and handed the shield to a constable behind him, who was already taking Bailey’s helmet on his way back to his motorbike. The constable nodded at him, taking the gear away to stow in her van, and Javert turned back to the line.

            “That goes for the entire force here today!” he shouted over the police line, pacing along behind it and noting as each officer blinked over their shoulder at his approach, some briefly, some gaping, some with surprise or resentment in their eyes. “We do not utilise force unless it is required of us! We do not draw our weapons unless it is _absolutely_ necessary! This is a legal rally which we are here to limit and protect, but not to suppress! You will do your duty according to your orders and according to your own reason, _not_ according to how much a _student_ insults you. Is that understood?”

            There were a few murmurs at his end of the line, and he squared his shoulders, drew himself up, and shouted over the diminishing din.

_“Is that understood?!”_

            The chorus which replied was not entirely pleasant, but it was coherent.

_“Yes, sir!”_

            With a long breath, Javert watched as the officers refocused on their tasks, shoulders straightening, shields lifting, and some eyes, at least, a little less furious. He nodded to himself, and stepped back down along the curb to return to his place in the line only to find that the tumult amongst the students was dying down, a stillness spreading out from where Bailey had been as whispers and shouts passed swiftly amongst the throng. He froze in place, with three dozen pairs of eyes already on him.

            There was a squirming movement at the centre of the crowd, then, at the raised, stone flowerbed behind the crowd, Javert saw the leader, Enjolras, take a megaphone from Combeferre’s hand and clamber onto the ledge, raising the speaker high.

 _“This is what the police should look like!”_ Enjolras shouted, voice screeching and hollow through the megaphone, amplified over the crowd and arresting whatever attention had not already been caught. _“Protecting the people, shielding the innocent, and punishing the_ actual _guilty parties, no matter their job or rank! I say we show the commissioner and all the fuckwits in government what kind of police force we_ really _want – not the pricks who beat up the vulnerable and take children away from their families, but the ones who protect them!  Fuck yes, let’s hear it for Inspector Javert!”_

            And – beyond all expectation, reason, or sanity – Enjolras was answered, by a wordless, triumphant hollering, a cheer which rose high, held for a moment, then scattered, undulating through the crowd and gradually, eventually, returning to chatter. From up on the ledge, Enjolras began to lead a chant, and below, Javert bowed his head, and resumed his place in line, slipping on his helmet and taking his shield from Girard, who held it out for him. She was grinning at him from behind her chinguard.

            “Nice speech, sir,” she said, audible only in close quarters under the din of the students. “Dubois’s gonna _die_ of envy.”

            Javert rolled his eyes with a grunt and something like a smile playing on his lips.

 

            In the end, the rally finished quickly, as the rain finally started to fall around five o’clock. At first, it was only a light drizzle, incapable of making the more dedicated students flee; but then the drops grew heavier and thicker, falling ever faster, and by the time Enjolras and Feuilly finally left, Javert and his line were soaked to the bone, only half as strong in numbers as they had started with. He caught Enjolras’ eye as the boy snatched up fallen leaflets and placards in the pouring rain.

            “All right, dismissed, everyone,” he called to the officers, who gratefully dropped their shoulders and spun about, hurrying to stow away their riot gear and get to the shelter of cars and station houses. Javert rested his shield against his side and pulled his helmet off, wiping his forehead with a wet hand.

            “Inspector,” said Enjolras, very suddenly at his side. “I wanted to personally thank you for what you did earlier.”

            Javert grunted in response, feeling his hair becoming swiftly as damp as the boy’s.

            “Only doing my duty,” he muttered. “I hope whoever was struck is all right. I’d like to obtain a statement for my report, if that’s possible, and I’d be happy to help if they want to prosecute Sergeant Bailey for damages.”

            Enjolras tilted his head up at Javert.

            “Joly went with them,” he said. “I think you intervened before any bones could be broken.”

            Javert narrowed his eyes. “And the statement?”

            “Not possible.” Enjolras’ tone was unshakeable. “I don’t think they want much to do with your type anymore.”

            “Understood,” Javert said with a nod. “You can contact me directly if you want a witness to help press charges against the sergeant. As I’m sure you heard, our orders were never to suppress the rally, and Sergeant Bailey acted outside of his jurisdiction as a police officer.”

            Enjolras’ mouth was tight, whether with anger or indecision, Javert couldn’t tell.

            “I will mention Sergeant Bailey’s failure to his superior,” he went on, “and will give it the gravity it deserves in my written report. The student will remain unidentified.”

            Enjolras’ mouth relaxed just a little.

            “Thank you, Inspector.”

            He was as stern as ever; but he was cordial, and strong, and Javert had seen the passion which drove him to lead his band of students. The boy would probably just as willingly have shot the entire police force on the street; but this was a rally, not a revolution, and at least he had Combeferre to restrain his steps.

            Javert nodded once, curt and final.

            “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again, Mr Enjolras.”

            He turned his back on the damp remains of the rally, stowed his gear in the van, and squelched his way around to the driver’s seat of the last car, next to Senior Constable Girard.

            “What’d he say?” she asked, as they both clipped their seatbelts into place.

            “Thanked me for stopping Bailey,” Javert shrugged, starting the car. “Made it clear that the person he struck won’t be available for a statement. _Fuck –”_ He wiped the dripping rainwater from his forehead and eyes, and slicked it back over his hair, already starting to frizz even in its tight bun.

            Girard was smiling at him, her own short ponytail dripping steadily onto her collar. Javert knew that look.

            “Please tell me no one was filming the thing with Bailey,” he sighed.

            “I saw at least three phones out,” Girard grinned. “Footage has probably been up on YouTube for _hours.”_

            Javert groaned as he pulled the car out into the traffic. “Dubois’s going to be _unbearable.”_

 

            An operation like rally control, of course, involved an absolute _mountain_ of paperwork. As expected, Dubois was unbearably supportive, but at least she’d already gone off shift by the time Javert made it back to the station house with Girard, and was finishing off her last report when Javert passed her desk.

            “Saw you on the news, sir,” she called after him, “we were all very impressed!”

            “Yes, thank you, Constable,” Javert threw over his shoulder, running his fingers through his damp hair and sideburns. He shut his office door firmly behind himself, and briskly shed belt, holster, and cap, one eye glancing absently through the blinds at the lit-up shopfront across the street. He pressed a short towel to his hair, soaking up the worst of the rain, then draped it around the back of his neck as he sat down at his desk.

            Outside, the wind had picked up, whipping the heavy rain against window and roof.

 

            Between the usual overabundance of forms, and the extra work needed to alert Sergeant Bailey’s superior and fill out an incident report for his actions, Javert wasn’t finished with his work until nearly half past eight. The wind and rain outside were still far too strong to bike home, but if it lessened a little for ten minutes…

            The station heating had never been perfect, and Javert’s hair and collar were still damp, chilling him. He donned his greatcoat and marched downstairs, breathing on his hands and rubbing them together to try to regain the feeling in his fingers. From the cover of the doorway, wind whistling past him, he checked the street, then ran across, the rain hammering at his skull and shoulders and slipping under his collar and down the back of his neck. Shuddering, he ducked under the slight shelter over the entrance to Madeleine’s and hurriedly knocked before trying the handle. It was locked; but as he looked up from under his dripping eyebrows, he saw Jean turn around from where he was cleaning tables and drop spray bottle and washcloth in favour of running to open the door.

            “Good heavens, Javert!” he gasped as Javert stumbled inside, shutting the door behind him and immediately reaching out to take his coat. “You’re soaked through, where have you come from?”

            Javert snorted. “Just across the road,” he muttered, “but I was already wet from the rally earlier.”

            Jean’s concern was softening out into a wide smile.

            “Yes, Enjolras told me what you did, and I saw the footage on the news,” he said, slinging Javert’s coat over a nearby chair. “We were all very impressed.”

 _“‘We’?”_ Javert repeated, trying to quell his horror. Jean shrugged.

            “Cosette and I,” he said. “And some of the customers asked to see…”

            Javert rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the flutter in his chest. “As if Girard and Dubois weren’t enough…”

            “It was very impressive,” Jean insisted. “I was a little worried when the weather turned, but Enjolras and Courfeyrac stopped by after they’d finished cleaning up and told us you all left when the rain started.”

            “The rally was over by then anyway,” Javert shrugged, as he rounded the nearest table and pulled out a chair, then hesitated, one hand on the back of the chair and the other hovering at his side. He looked up at Jean, and asked, “May I?”

            “Oh, of course!” Jean laughed, throwing both hands out in invitation. “Can I get you anything? You must be freezing!”

            “A little,” Javert admitted with a shrug. He was feeling light-headed, whether from the cold or Jean’s rolling laugh, he couldn’t tell. “Flat white please.”

            Jean smiled at him as he backed away and turned to round the end of the counter. “It’s nice to indulge sometimes, isn’t it?” he crooned, and Javert scoffed at him, staring at his hands on the table.

            “It’s cold, and I’d like to warm up a little before I bike home.”

            Jean froze halfway through preparing the coffee machine.

            “You are _not_ biking home in this,” he said, low and incredulous. Javert shrugged.

            “If the rain eases a bit in the next little while, I could easily –”

 _“No,_ Javert,” Jean growled, “you can _not_ bike home!”

            “We’ll see what the weather does,” Javert drawled before he could start expounding on his reasoning. “It only takes me ten minutes, if it lets up, I could easily make it.”

            “And if it doesn’t let up?”

 _C-clank–clank–clank._ Jean filled the basket with unusual force. Javert rolled his eyes.

            “Then I’ll take the train home,” he said.

            “And walk all the way from Petersham?!”

            A noise of frustration escaped from Javert’s throat as he tipped back his head. “It’s five minutes, Jean –”

            “Do you even have an umbrella?”

_“Five minutes –”_

            The coffee machine rumbled and hummed, and Jean glared at Javert over the top of it as he opened the milk. “I’m calling you a taxi,” he said, cutting off Javert’s argument. “There’s no reason for you to soak yourself to the bone and risk getting sick, not when you’ve already stood out in the rain this afternoon.”

            Javert averted his eyes. “You don’t have to do that.”

            “No, I don’t have to,” Jean said, glancing up at him from the steaming milk. “I’m still going to, though.”

            With a scoff, and a roll of his eyes, Javert fell silent. In the quiet, he could hear every gurgle and sputter of the drawn coffee and heating milk, even the faint hiss of foam. He swallowed through the tightness in his chest which had been growing from the moment he stepped in the door, and focused instead in the thoughts that flitted through his mind, of paperwork, and how he’d get to work the next day, and the idea of Jean’s warm hands around his tingling fingers. Then Jean was beside him, with a rough “Here you go,” and Javert’s coffee in hand, perfectly made as if he were halfway through the day instead of closing, in a clean, dry cup and saucer, no sugar, shining teaspoon on the side, served with a small, patient, private smile which still whispered of Jean’s pride in him for what he’d done at the rally, and his concern for how the police officer who had once decried him would now get home in the rain.

            The tightness in Javert’s chest squeezed almost to snapping. Very abruptly, Javert stood, chair scraping against the floor and making Jean startle; but Javert was heedless of what he was doing.

            “Javert?” Jean tried. “Is everything all right? I can get you something else if you –”

            “No,” Javert snapped. “No, it’s perfect –” His voice softened. “You’re _perfect.”_

            Jean let out an abashed laugh, and said: “It’s only coffee.”

            With a sharp turn of his head, Javert stared at Jean, bewildered and exasperated and utterly – utterly –

            “I’d like to kiss you now,” he said. “If that’s all right with you.”

            Jean’s expression was one which Javert would have liked to have photographed and kept in his wallet to look at during difficult cases. Confusion and embarrassment still lingered in his eyes, but it was tempered now by a questioning crease in his brow, all made brilliant by the delight in the corners of his mouth – _oh,_ that delightful mouth, delightful as the rest of him, which Javert forced himself not to stare at. He met Jean’s eye, and said, with a little less bluntness than before:

            “May I kiss you?”

            Jean laughed, just once.

            “Why?”

            “Because I’m in love with you,” Javert replied, without hesitation.

            Dubois had been right. He did feel better for the confession, if rather more suspenseful, the tight bubble in his chest now hovering somewhere behind his collarbone. And now Jean was smiling, broad and kind and gentle and happy in a way that made Javert want to keep him smiling like that forever. He wanted Jean to be nothing but happy for the rest of his life.

            “All right,” Jean said, through his brilliant smile. He laughed once more. “All right, you can kiss me.”

            Javert’s eyes were wide, and his mouth had fallen open by a fraction. He stumbled forward half a step, then stopped, hesitating even on the threshold.

            “Sorry,” he muttered, “I’m just not sure how to –”

            Jean’s hands touched his waist, warm and comforting and steady, and he thought he might die right there from sheer joy.

            “Neither am I,” Jean chuckled, a little breathlessly, then murmured: “Take all the time you need. I’m right here.”

            Out of some bewildered instinct, Javert lifted his hand, and let the backs of his fingers brush at Jean’s cheek – across his skin, and over the edges of his white beard, touching his cheekbone near his eye and feeling the flutter there as Jean blinked. He let out a noise – a soft _“Oh,”_ as of realisation – and pressed both long hands to Jean’s cheeks, cradling his face between his palms. He lowered his head, and their noses brushed together.

            Jean was still smiling.

            It took very little to close the distance between their mouths. At the first touch of their lips, Javert felt something jump in his chest – the bubble bursting and swelling outwards – but then he thirsted for more, and pushed forward with a little more courage, pressing their mouths together. He wasn’t certain if he was doing it properly, but a small, pleased sound escaped Jean’s throat, so he assumed he’d gotten something right, despite that their mouths were closed, dry, and ill-aligned. Jean’s hands were strong and tight against his hips, his thumbs gently caressing the bones there through his clothes, holding him upright and in place when he was sure he would collapse from the wonder of it all. He pulled back for a breath, then immediately dived back in, catching his teeth on Jean’s smile. Jean yelped at the impact, flinching back and pressing his fingers to his front teeth, and Javert let out a mortified, “Oh, _God –”_ , which only prompted Jean to laugh again. Holding Javert steady at the hips, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to just the corner of Javert’s mouth: too far away to catch, but too close to be mistaken for anything less deliberate.

            “It’s all right,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I’m doing either, remember?”

            Javert’s breath caught in his chest. This closeness to Jean – his breath so near, his skin so warm, his hands so steady and his eyes so bright – was intoxicating, and Javert wanted to bring it even closer, and make it last longer, than it was. He pushed his chin forward and shut his eyes, hoping by everything he held dear that his aim would be true; with a little shifting to accommodate Jean’s beard, it was.

            Jean smiled against him, and Javert kissed him through that; Jean’s hands slipped to the small of Javert’s back, and Javert kissed him through that. Jean’s mouth moved against his, and he reciprocated, trying to mimic the gesture, find something that would extend the kiss without merely making them stand there like statues in a static embrace.

            He realised that his hands had dragged down without his permission, pressed now to Jean’s neck and jaw, and the base of his skull, white hair soft as silk against his fingers. Javert’s elbows were tangled up with Jean’s shoulders, and their chests connected in odd places. He tested little kisses, and longer, lingering ones, as he tried to find what he liked and decided that he liked everything, so long as it was with Jean Valjean.

            Eventually, Jean pulled himself away for air. Outside, the rain was still hammering down, the wind dashing it in waves against the windows. Jean’s breath was coming quickly, and there was a heavy flush in his dusky cheeks which Javert hoped desperately was not from embarrassment. He wanted to keep kissing him; but suddenly his arms were moving without his volition, drawing Jean closer and wrapping tight around his back and shoulders, so broad that they accommodated Javert’s lanky limbs. In return, Jean huffed out a small, pleased sound, and tightened his arms, sliding them around Javert’s waist; here too, between Javert’s quick metabolism and Jean’s muscles, they fit together all too well. Javert could feel that they were pressed together at the knee, the thigh, the hip, the belly, the chest, with the toes of their shoes cluttered together and Jean’s head nestled into the crook of his neck so that his hair tickled the side of his face. They stood like that, and Javert closed his eyes and sighed, tightening his arms as he would increase a stretch on every outward breath. Jean chuckled over his shoulder, and Javert felt damp lips touch the skin of his neck and jaw. His fingers weren’t cold anymore.

            In the end, Javert spoke.

            “I should go home.”

            “Not in this weather,” Jean countered, muffled against Javert’s skin. Javert’s fingers flexed at the knowledge of what Jean’s voice sounded and felt like from so close.

            “All right, I won’t bike,” Javert grumbled half-heartedly, “but I still need to get home.”

            “Stay here,” Jean whispered, and his palms stroked up and down Javert’s back. “We have a spare room. Cosette won’t mind.”

            Javert felt his heart squirm.

            “No, I – I need to go home,” he insisted softly, and felt Jean’s shoulders tense under his arms.

            “Oh,” Jean muttered. “Sorry, of course –”

            Javert frantically gripped his hands in the back of Jean’s shirt before he could pull away. “No,” he stammered, “no it’s not – it’s not that, I just mean –”

            Jean’s hands had slid around to his hips, and were gently pushing him back until he released his arms and leaned away. “Javert, I –” he started, then shut his eyes and shook his head once. “No, it’s fine, I understand –”

            “No-o, no you don’t!” Javert blurted, fingers pressing at Jean’s jaw so he’d open his eyes and look. “I just mean – I have things to get, I have my own bed, I’ll need a shower and a change of socks, it’s not that I don’t – I mean I _don’t_ want to, but I don’t –”

            “Javert –”

            He squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing the urge to stamp his foot, and hissed out, “Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to offend, and it’s not personal –”

            “It’s all right!” Jean laughed, as his hands moved back around to the curve of Javert’s spine. “You don’t have to apologise, I – I understand –”

            “Do you?!” Javert blurted out, fraying at the edges, and Jean laughed again, and stepped closer again, nodding.

            “Yes, yes I do,” he rambled, “I think I do.”

            “Okay…?” Javert breathed. His heart was hammering away in his chest like he’d cycled the length of George Street in a minute.

            “I’m still calling you a taxi.”

            Javert’s mouth fell open, and he started to roll his eyes; but any actual protest was cut off by Jean’s lips against his jaw, brief and sweet.

            “Finish your coffee, Javert,” he murmured; then slipped away to the phone in the kitchen. Javert stood, stunned and almost petrified for a moment, before he fumbled behind himself for the chair and dropped heavily into the seat. The coffee was going lukewarm, but it was still delicious. When Jean returned from making the call, he sat smiling across from Javert and left his hands atop the table, fidgeting very lightly, as if they wanted something to hold. After a minute, Javert capitulated, and stopped toying with the saucer in favour of reaching the extra few centimetres with his left hand to catch Jean’s fingers. Jean’s smile broadened at that as he watched their faintly twining hands.

            Five minutes later, Javert saw the taxi pull up through the rain outside. He knocked back the last of the coffee, drew back his hand, and stood hesitating by the table. Jean pushed himself from his chair to join him, picking up Javert’s damp greatcoat from its chair as he went.

            “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he said, holding out the coat and softening the blow with the gentle upturning of his lips. Javert took the coat – heavy in his cloud-light fingers – and forced out a reply through what felt like a winding punch in the chest.

            “It’s fine.”

            Jean’s mouth opened as if to speak, stopping Javert in a half-step towards the door. They stayed like that for a moment, poised in tableau, each watching the other without quite knowing where the moment would go.

            “Can I kiss you again?” Jean finally asked. Javert’s eyes went wide, and he found himself glancing about, away and down, anywhere but at Jean’s pleasant face. He cleared his throat.

            “Yes.” _Too cold._ He amended it before Jean could move. “Yes please.”

            Jean’s answering grin was all the warmth he needed. He felt fingers against the side of his neck, and sliding into his right hand, and kept his eyes open, unseeing, as Jean pressed his mouth to Javert’s in something small, sweet, and indescribably perfect.

            “I’ll pay you back for the taxi tomorrow,” Jean whispered; and before he could protest, Javert found his feet propelling himself towards the door. He was half-soaked already by the time he reached the curb; but at least his home would be warm with the memory of Jean’s arms.

  

* * *

 

 

            Natasha was grinning at him as he marched into work the next morning at twenty to eight, shaking out an umbrella and silently fuming about the lateness of the train.

            “Congratulations,” she said; then, at Javert’s halted feet and frowning look, added, “Jim was on duty last night, he told me the good news.”

            Javert stood in bewildered silence.

            “What good news?”

            Natasha scoffed at him. “Wh– You and Madeleine, of course!” she cried. “Jim said he was walking past for his shift last night and saw you two…” She lowered her chin and cast a very significant glance up at him from her desk. “Well.”

            The umbrella in Javert’s hand lowered, tip touching the floor.

_“What?”_

            “Oh, he wasn’t _watching!”_ Natasha said, with a wide expression of horrified surprise. “He was just in the right place at the right time, it’s all right. We’re very happy for you.” She beamed at him, and Javert’s frown only grew.

            “How many other people know about this?” he snapped. Natasha huffed at him.

            “Don’t worry,” she sighed, “I haven’t been _gossiping,_ I’m not _that_ unprofessional.” She rolled her eyes. “I told Fiona though, when she came in, thought she’d like to know.”

            “Who?”

            Natasha’s mouth screwed up. _“Constable Dubois,”_ she said. “She does have a first name, you know, unlike you.”

            Javert snorted at that. “Fantastic,” he grumbled, “now I’ll never hear the end of it.”

            “She’s very happy for you,” Natasha soothed, “that’s all. Go on up to your office, Inspector, I’m sure she’s waiting with bated breath for you to arrive so she can give her congratulations…”

            Javert let out a low _“Eugh,”_ and headed towards the stairs. By the time he’d passed the constables’ desks and reached his office, he could already hear the rapid beat of approaching boots.

            “Good morning to you too, Constable,” Javert sighed as he stowed his umbrella behind the door and shrugged out of his dripping coat.

            “Go-ood _morning,_ Inspector Javert!” Dubois crowed from behind him as he rounded the desk. “And _how_ is Mr Madeleine this morning?”

            When Javert finally faced her from the safety of behind his desk, she was grinning, and practically bouncing on her toes, hands clasped behind her back, clearly fidgeting where she thought he couldn’t see. He sighed internally.

            “I know you know his real name,” he grumbled, and started fumbling through the files in his in-tray.

            “Whatever,” Dubois shrugged, “but _how is he?”_

            “I wouldn’t know,” Javert drawled, “as I haven’t seen him this morning. I was just about to go over and get some coffee when you interrupted me.”

            Nothing, it seemed, could quell the excited grin on Dubois’ face.

            “Well, we’re all _very_ happy for you,” was all she said. Javert raised an eyebrow.

            “Are we?” he said. “I could name some choice homophobes in the station who would be far from thrilled to learn about…” He dithered, suddenly paralysed by the idea of having to give some sort of coherent name to whatever it was that had developed between him and Jean. He had to finish the sentence somehow, though, and eventually went with: “It.”

            Dubois snickered at him.

            “True,” she admitted, with a half shrug, “but at least _I’m_ happy for you.”

            “Constable,” Javert sighed, “I really don’t know what this has to do with the work you no doubt have to get on with this morning.”

            Dubois practically hopped off the floor with her jaunty shrug. “Nothing,” she sang. “Nothing at all. Just wanted to extend congratulations on finally getting your shit together, sir.”

            “Well, your congratulations are noted and appreciated,” Javert smirked. “Now back to your duties, Constable.”

            He would never have sworn it in court, but he had a deep suspicion that Dubois had _giggled_ at that.

            “Morning, sir!” she piped; then span on her heel and disappeared into the corridor, practically skipping back to her desk. Javert rolled his eyes.

 

            He left the station house feeling tense from knee to shoulder, gait stiff and belly as tight as if he were halfway through a set of sit-ups. He forced himself to blow out a breath at the curb, which failed to relax anything but his lungs, and looked both ways, crossing quickly through the light rain. The door to Madeleine’s was already open, one lone customer sitting with book and coffee in the front corner, and he slipped in to find Jean looking up at him from the counter, all wide eyes and tight mouth. Javert baulked.

            He cleared his throat.

            “Good morning,” he said, a little hoarsely. Jean’s smile looked forced.

            “Good morning, Javert,” he said. “Espresso?”

            Javert’s composure shattered. He knew his face was falling, and he couldn’t help it.

            “What’s going on,” he snapped, “why are you acting like this?”

            “Like what?” Jean frowned, recoiling a little. A high-pitched sound of absolute fear and confusion escaped Javert’s throat.

            “Did I do something wrong last night?” he croaked. “I wasn’t going to make you pay me back for the taxi, even if you offered, you shouldn’t have to –”

            “No – no, no –” Jean stuttered over him, “no it’s fine, I was only – _Javert,_ _hush,_ I was just afraid you might…”

            He trailed off, and a thrill of nervous fear slipped down Javert’s spine like rainwater. _“Might?”_ he repeated, a little frantic now.

            “Sorry,” Jean blurted over a half-laugh, “I just thought you might have… regretted it, or rethought it or something –”

            “Don’t be _ridiculous,”_ Javert spat, “I’ve been wanting to do that sinc—”

            He cut himself off with lips pressed together and a slow outpouring of breath through his nose, looking very steadily at the wall instead of at Jean’s softening, relieved expression. He balled his hands into fists to keep himself from fiddling with the tip jar.

            “Espresso, Javert?” Jean asked, and now his smile wasn’t forced, and his voice was calm, and Javert felt weak at the knees.

            “Yes please,” he murmured, reaching for his change. “And I never paid you for last night’s –”

            “It was a gift, Javert,” Jean shrugged, “you don’t have to pay for it. How much was the taxi?”

            Javert rested his palms on the counter and leaned over, breathing out. He felt a little bit like he might faint.

            “Javert?”

            “Oh my God,” he groaned, “could I kiss you please, I think that would make me feel a lot better about this whole mess –”

            He cut himself off to look up and find Jean beaming at him from the other side of the muffins and business cards. Jean stepped to one side of the register and pressed forward, leaning over his half of the counter to drop a kiss on the corner of Javert’s mouth. It wouldn’t do, of course; and, enraptured, Javert followed as he retreated, catching him again quick enough for something longer, drawn-out, his hips dipping into the edge of the counter and Jean’s smile pressed to his lips, until –

            “R’s gonna _flip.”_

            It felt as if Javert’s whole body had flinched in different directions at once. His eyes flew open, and he threw himself back from the counter, jaw dropped and shoulders almost at his ears, hands stuck in the air before him in pure horror. Behind him, somebody snorted with laughter.

            “And here we all thought it was impossible to sneak up on those cat-like inspector reflexes. Hi Mr Fauchelevent, sorry I’m late,” Jehan was saying, as they walked along the counter to the kitchen with Jean’s relieved laugh following behind, “I had a little trouble with the cookie dough, ran out of the right kind of sprinkles. Had to buy more at the last minute, but I think they’ll still achieve the same horrifying effect when melted. Morning, Inspector.” They grinned at Javert from beside the coffee machines and dropped a quick peck on Jean’s cheek. “I’m gonna get started on the baking – please don’t do anything _too_ mushy while I’m still around,” they added, as they headed for the kitchen.

            “I make no promises, Jehan,” Jean called after them, mock-solemn, and turned back to Javert with a bashful expression. “Sorry about that. They can be a little… well.”

            “That’s fine,” Javert forced out, clearing his throat and finally lowering his hands. “Fine.” His whole back was still rigid from mortified shock.

            “I’ll get you that coffee,” Jean smiled. “Maybe that’ll make you feel better.”

            Finally, the tension leeched out of Javert’s muscles, as he forced himself to pay attention and reach for his wallet. He handed over a five-dollar note, muttering, “For last night and today, don’t argue,” then rounded the corner of the counter, loathe even now to go so far away from Jean as to take a seat. He hovered on his side of the machines, watching Jean’s serene face as he worked and occasionally glanced up to meet Javert’s eye. There was a straining in Javert’s chest, a fluttering, flurrying, nervous tightness worse than it had ever been around this man, now that he knew precisely what he wanted, and how available to him it was. He wanted to be closer, to touch at the hand or arm or hip, something, _anything –_

            “Here you go,” said Jean, sliding Javert’s glass over the open space at the end of the counter. Javert darted forward, as if to catch Jean’s hand as it retreated, but missed, hesitating at the last second and instead leaning on his hand next to his coffee. Jean let loose a very small laugh, and stepped closer to the counter, reaching out to rest his hand over Javert’s.

            “Drink your coffee, Javert,” he soothed, smoothing trembling fingers over the back of Javert’s hand. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

            And he was gone, slipping into the kitchen after Jehan. Breathless, slightly dumbfounded, Javert picked up his coffee and took it to the back corner table he preferred, setting it down and slinging out of his greatcoat as he sat. In moments, Jean returned, checking for customers before joining Javert at his table, sending the inspector quivering with a different kind of nervousness.

            “So…”

            Javert stayed quiet, watching Jean over the rim of his glass as he sipped his coffee. Jean took a sudden, bracing breath.

            “We need to discuss this, Javert,” he said, with raised brows and an air of gravity. Javert lowered his coffee.

            “Yes.”

            Jean sighed at him, the corners of his mouth tilting up. “You could contribute a little more to the conversation,” he said, not unkindly. Javert cleared his throat.

            “So you…” he muttered, “you uh – we’re in a, uh – _relationship?”_

            The last word was tentative, strained, and a little wary. Jean chuckled at him, once.

            “Does that sound good to you?” he asked, and Javert’s eyes went wide.

            “Does it to _you?”_

            Jean rolled his eyes. “Only if it does to you,” he said, and Javert scoffed.

            “This is going nowhere,” he snapped.

            “I know.”

            Javert heaved a sigh. “I told you I’m in love with you,” he said. “Do you feel… similarly?”

            “Yes,” Jean replied, almost a drawl. “Very, very similarly, I would say.”

            Javert gave a glare at his levity which deterred it not a bit.  “And we’ve admitted it to each other,” he continued. “We’ve – …” He gestured vaguely, with flicking fingers, between their mouths. Jean laughed, and hid his eyes in his hand momentarily.

            “Yes, we have kissed each other,” he agreed, with a beguiling hint of pink in his cheeks. His voice was low. “To spell it out, Javert, I’d like to be in a romantic relationship with you. How does that sound?”

            With a sharp nod, Javert picked up his coffee and took an overlong swig. “Yes,” he choked out as he swallowed and set down the glass, “yes that sounds amenable.”

 _“Amenable,”_ Jean repeated, with still hands, raised brow, and a wrinkle at the corner of each eye. Javert would not be goaded.

            “Yes,” he insisted. “Amenable.”

            There was a moment in which the word hung in the air, stilted and succinct; then Jean laughed low and regular, and brought his hands over the table to cover Javert’s, squeezing and stroking his fingers in an interlocking pile before the half-finished coffee. Javert answered his laugh with a low huff of his own, and bent his head to hide his slight smile, stilling when he looked up once more.

            “You have customers,” he said, as he watched two people approach the café door from the street. Jean glanced back over his shoulder.

            “Oh,” he said, sounding unconvinced, “Jehan can probably deal with it…”

            Javert rolled his eyes. “No they can’t,” he said. “Go do your job, Jean.”

            He watched with a fond gaze as Jean stood up, beaming at him, and reached out to briefly catch his hand as he left to round the end of the counter and greet the newcomers. It was startling, to Javert, how easily such affection came to him. It was never something he had experienced before, on either the giving or receiving end; and yet, the impulse to be close and make contact with this enigma of a man, who had ruined and rebuilt him, was strong and simple: Javert had only to obey his instincts. They had rarely failed him in the past, and here they seemed to be proving themselves as reliable as ever.

            He finished his coffee as the line behind the counter grew, and three of Jean’s staff arrived, all of whom Javert recognised from one line of his work or another. At eight o’clock, Javert stood, donned his coat, and made to leave, swerving at the last minute to meet Jean at the back end of the counter where he was serving drinks.

            “You’re leaving?” said Jean, and Javert nodded.

            “I have work to do,” he said, “and you’re only getting busier. I don’t want to occupy a table someone else needs.”

            “Sounds fair,” Jean said, as he smiled at a customer and handed them a takeaway cup. He caught Javert’s eye again. “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

            A sort of abrupt, high-pitched hum escaped Javert’s throat, which he resolutely ignored.

            “Yes,” he answered, “that would be nice.”

            Jean laughed, and stepped around the end of the counter so he could lean up and place a little kiss on Javert’s cheek. Startled, Javert watched as he began to retreat, then stopped, still close enough for Javert to go slightly cross-eyed trying to look at him. Luckily, Jean understood the way Javert flinched and stared, imploring, down at him, and he smiled a little wider, stepping closer and taking Javert’s hand in his at their sides as he leaned up to kiss Javert’s mouth. It was short, close-mouthed, and very sweet, and still Javert’s eyes fell shut and he felt himself go a little limp in the shoulders as the kiss drew the tension out of him.

            They pulled away from each other, and Javert cleared his throat.

            “I have to go to work.”

            Jean chuckled, and kissed his other cheek.

            “So go.”

            At a loss for what to do, Javert dropped Jean’s hand with a certainty he didn’t quite feel, and turned resolutely, sweeping out of the shop. He could not stop the smile that curled his lips.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_August 12_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac, Jiemba Bahorel, Bossuet L’egles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        so dad just had a very srs bsns conversation w/ me that i think you’ll want to hear

             

**Robin Grantaire**

                        TELL ALL

                        ferre is currently STUDYING of all things so he’s turned off his phone but dw i’ll keep him updated

                        nerd

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        okay okay okay so

                        he was like ‘cosette can we have a talk pls it’s v important’ and i’m like ‘???? okay?? what did u do’

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Please don’t tell me this is gonna be another sad backstory thing, i’ve cried way too much about your dad for one lifetime

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘cosette i know you’re a very understanding person’

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN TELL US ANYTHING CONCRETE

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘and i know you try to accept those close to you no matter what’

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        omg

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        oh my god

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        so ofc i’m like ‘??????????? yes???? what is it what have you done’

                        ‘i have something to tell you’

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                         _[_ The Simpsons _reaction image of Homer with his fingers crossed, with the caption “gay, gay, gay”.]_

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        and he starts talking about how he wants me to be a part of his life and to know what’s happening with him as much as he wants to know about my life, which is SO SWEET gosh

             

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        your dad is the literal best, we’ve been over this

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i know

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        tell us something we don’t know

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        I’M GETTING TO IT, DON’T WORRY

                        ok so he starts like ‘you know inspector javert and i have an……….. odd history’

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Yes yes YES YES YES

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        Holy shit HOLY SHIT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘i know we don’t always make sense to you and your friends. I’ve heard what they say about him and his profession.’

                        dad u have literally engaged in these conversations but ok

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Haha I was gonna say

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘javert and i…………………..’

                        poor thing he was so worried and awkward, he clearly didn’t know how to say it

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        javert and i WHAT jesus fucking christ cosette don’t do this to us

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i swear, these are his actual words

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        whAT  ARE THEY ?????????????? ? ? ??/

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        You’ll be the death of us Cosette I swear

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘javert and i may have come to a kind of understanding.’

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        wtf does that mean COME ON JEAN USE UR WORDS

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        and i’m thinking like ‘by understanding do you mean he’s decided to move cities so he doesn’t have to deal with you anymore or do you mean you made out’

                        and hE’S LIKE

                        ‘how would you feel if he and i…. entered into a relationship’

                        and ofc i’m like

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        YES

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

             

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        GOD IS REAL, HEAVEN HAS BEEN REVEALED TO US, ETC

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ‘THAT WOULD BE SO FINE BY ME DAD I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU PLEASE THERE’S NO NEED TO BE SO WORRIED, SO LONG AS YOU’RE HAPPY AND HE’S NOT HURTING YOU AGAIN THAT IS /FINE/ OH MY GOSH’

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Holy hell yes?????????????????????????????????

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        JESUS H CHRIST HOW COULD HE EVER BE /WORRIED/ ABOUT THAT OMG

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        aw R don’t be so harsh, he probably thought we all still hated javert after what he did

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        that was literally like

                        a while ago

                        like SO MANY WHILES ago

                        hold on i’m gonna go tell ferre the good news

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        lol what are u gonna say

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        “COMBEFERRE, EXCELLENT NEWS, LEBLANC’S COP BOYFRIEND IS NOW /ACTUALLY HIS COP BOYFRIEND/”

                        a shining beacon of goodness has lighted upon the world etc etc fill in the gaps

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i’m just so happy for hiiiimmmm i was like ‘dad of course that is fine that is so fine he was clearly crushing on you so hard you’ve been pining for WEEKS this is so okay, so long as you’re both happy’ and he was so relieved

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        relieved???????????????? wtf did he expect

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        OH NO THAT’S SO CUTE how else could you possibly have reacted though?

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        R told me the good news

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        yeah did he srsly expect you to be like “nO THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE he is SCUM you are WRONG IN YOUR CHOICE OF PARAMOUR”

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        I’m very happy for them both

                        also sdkjghDSKJGHSLFUSGHDKLFGDIFSLUGSDH

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        oh hush courf of course he was worried

                        he always is

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        but we love him still

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        He’s not YOUR dad R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        YES HE IS, EAGLE BOYS

                        HE IS ALL OF OUR DADS

                        HE IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA DAD

                        THE ULTIMATE DAD

                        DAD TO ALL

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        R’s right tbh

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        He’s just SO LOVELY god dammit cosette how did u land such a gr18 dad

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        by cycling through two totally crap ones first?

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        …………………………………….

                        point granted

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        like u can talk courf your parents are gold incarnate

 

**Bossuet L’egles**

                        yeah but R you haven’t had to remind them for like the 5TH TIME that you can’t hear them if they’re mumbling from across the room because you are DEAF

                        Like an ACTUAL CERTIFIED DEAF HUMAN

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        haha yeah, they’re inherently quite nice, but they need….. a lot of work………….

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        which is what u and enjolras are for

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        it is true

                        we have graciously taken this burden upon ourselves

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        hey I help

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        do you though????? do you

                        or do you just capitulate every time they say sorry and offer you lemonade to make up for it

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        moderator chiming in to say that this chat is for cop boyfriend gossip ONLY pls take ur cute bf bickering elsewhere

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        haha thanks chetta

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        awwww i was enjoying that

 

**Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        point taken

                        cosette i’m very happy for your dad :))

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        AS WE ALL ARE

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        U v U

                        i’ll let him know u said that

 

**Jackson Courfeyrac**

                        very VERY happy

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        okay CHAT OVER BYE gonna go actually study oh dear

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ur free to go do nerd things again ferre

 

**Bossuet L’esgles**

                        Surely you have mid-sems to study for too R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        i live the charmed life of a philosophy major, your eagleness

                        it’s final essays and take-home exams for me

                        [finger-gun emoji]

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        *coughs loudly*

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        thank u chetta

 

                        […]

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        txt from jehan the social media inept woodland child

                        “you should know that I caught Leblanc and the cop making out over the counter this morning when I went to work”

                        goodbye friends i am gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The case of Senior Sergeant Hills is based on that of Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, who was acquitted of manslaughter in 2007, and in May 2015 was one of two officers stood down before an internal investigation into an unauthoriased pursuit, dangerous driving, and inappropriate force. More information [here](http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/queensland-police-stood-down-amid-claims-of-dangerous-chase-20150521-gh6gw0.html). I have no idea how Hurley ended up, but it served as damn good inspiration, I won't lie.
> 
> And here we also see evidence of my knowing liberties with police procedure. There is, in fact, a dedicated Public Order and Riot Squad which a regular inspector and his constables would not be involved with in guarding a protest, but, y'know. The demands of plot and all... I got lazy.
> 
> EDIT, 8/12/2016: Chris Hurley is back in the news. Justice has definitely not been served, but Hurley's been convicted and fined for an assault in 2013, apparently ruining his career, but as the magistrate said, "the message needed to be sent that police cannot abuse their power" (http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/12/02/controversial-policeman-chris-hurleys-career-tatters-after-conviction). Furthermore, the Aboriginal community of Palm Island has been awarded damages and won part of a suit against the Queensland government and police force for their breach of the Racial Discrimination Act in the disproportionate response to rioting after the death in custody. The magistrate also said that Hurley should have been suspended and treated as a suspect, and eyewitnesses should have been taken more seriously. Of course, "Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers rejected the decision and said the officers involved were not racist", but does that come as a surprise to anyone? (http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/12/05/court-orders-compensation-palm-island-racial-discrimination-case)


	5. Chapter 5

_“Always was, always will be –”_

_“Aboriginal land!”_

_“Always was, always will be –”_

_“Aboriginal land!”_

            “Well, hullo Inspector. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

            Javert’s mouth pulled into a thin smile as he turned his head, and found his pace being matched as the boy slowed down, the rest of the protesters moving around him like a river around a rock.

            “Good afternoon, Mr Courfeyrac,” he said, smoothly. “Half the Newtown LAC was utilised to mind the protest, in fact, it really shouldn’t be surprising.”

            Courfeyrac grinned at him, broad and blinding behind his scarf.

            “Of course it shouldn’t,” he said happily. “Still, always nice to see a familiar face, right? Ready to stop some police beatings?”

            Javert fixed the boy with a glare.

            “The officers here,” he growled, “are under strict orders not to use excessive force unless _absolutely_ necessary –”

            “Yeah,” Courfeyrac shrugged, “but what counts as ‘excessive’, right?”

            Javert scowled, lip curling. “That’s precisely the problem, isn’t it.”

            Courfeyrac was grinning again.

            “So where’s the riot gear, Inspector?” he quipped. “Thought you’d come more prepared.”

            “Don’t worry,” Javert deadpanned, “it’s on site.”

            Courfeyrac started out staring; then his face split into another brimming smile, all neat teeth and joy.

            “Oh my God, Inspector Javert,” he cried, “was that a _joke_ I just heard?”

            Javert could not stop the smile that pulled at his mouth, stretching his lips.

            “Was that _sarcasm?”_ Courfeyrac was saying. “Innocent, barefaced sarcasm? Surely the sky must be about to fall! Chetta! Hey, Chetta!”

            Ahead of them in the crowd, a long, black braid and thick, knitted scarf turned, bobbing in the stream of chanting people and craning to find them.

            “The cop boyfriend made a joke!” Courfeyrac shouted, and Javert winced.

            “Oh, yes,” he drawled, “shout it a little louder, why don’t you? I think there might be some people in Rozelle who didn’t hear you…”

            “Sorry,” Courfeyrac said, but he was still grinning. “Anyway, I should get back to Enjolras and Ferre, we’re meant to be behind Bahorel heading this thing together. She made a speech and everything.”

            “Yes, I saw,” said Javert. “What made you abandon them?”

            Courfeyrac shrugged. “Someone was having a bit of an anxiety attack back here,” he said, “I thought I’d look after them. We’re all good now, got them into a café with a few friends and no marching crowds.”

            “Good job,” Javert said. “And if it happens again, you know you can utilise one of the officers to help.”

            “Thanks Inspector,” Courfeyrac grimaced, “but I don’t think we will.”

            Javert glanced at him askance; then pursed his lips, and turned his face forward again, conceding the point. Suddenly, he clicked his tongue, opened his mouth, and dipped his chin to the radio on his shoulder, pressing the push-to-talk. “Constable Nguyen,” he said into the receiver, “Inspector Javert. You would do well to remember your orders about aggressive posture. Out.”

            Courfeyrac was peering out over the crowd. “Which one’s that?” he asked, craning his neck back and forth, and Javert nodded ahead of them, where the front of the march was clearly visible as it ascended the next hill.

            “Third in from the front guard,” he said, “near those people with the cardboard signs. See his right hand?”

            Courfeyrac narrowed his eyes. “No?”

            Javert sighed. “It’s on his belt,” he explained. “See?”

            “Oh. Yes.” Courfeyrac still sounded confused. “So?”

            “Aggressive posture,” Javert nodded, as if to underline the point. “It’s something I’m working on. Hands at the sides or behind the back is neutral, hands on the belt looks readier to go for the weapons on a vest, belt, or holster. More likely to provoke a negative reaction in an opponent and more likely to encourage the officer and their colleagues to use those weapons, since they’re closer at hand. I warned the officers about this at the briefing.” He tilted his chin to the radio again. “Constable Nguyen,” he barked, “that was an _order. Out.”_

            They both watched as the officer glanced around him, and dragged his hand down from where he’d had his thumb hooked into his belt. Javert nodded to himself.

            “Wow,” Courfeyrac muttered, “okay.”

            “If you see any other officers with similar attitudes, please try to record their name and rank and report them to me,” Javert said. “Good afternoon, Mr Courfeyrac.”

            Courfeyrac grinned, gave a mock salute, and slipped away into the crowd, throwing a hasty “Will do!” over his shoulder as he left. The protest passed without major incident, and Javert was glad to get away with that sole conversation with one of Cosette’s group, his only other civilian interactions being to give directions and answer questions from strangers. He’d been assigned to the rally for as long as it lasted; but since the crowd had finished and dispersed by three, he was able to return to the station and finish his reports just after four o’clock, leaving time – well. He’d stopped making excuses to himself for going to Madeleine’s.

 

            “Javert!”

            Jean was smiling at him. Why was Jean smiling at him?

            Javert leaned down to meet the peck on the lips he was greeted with, then found himself being steered between patrons to a free table at the back of the café.

            “You seem oddly happy about something,” he said suspiciously as he was seated by Jean’s hand on his shoulder. “What’s happened?”

            “Courfeyrac told me about what you did at the rally today,” Jean said, grinning, as he sat across from Javert. “I’m very proud.”

            Javert frowned. “I didn’t do anything at the rally today.”

            “Well, at the briefing, then,” Jean corrected, casting a wry glance at him over his sincere smile. “How did the rest of it go?”

            Javert huffed out a sigh. “Six officers reprimanded for aggressive behaviour, two commended for the calm handling of an impromptu sit-in _in the middle of the Town Hall intersection._ Students, of course, these children, I swear…”

            Jean was _still_ smiling at him. “Enjolras asked me to pass on a list he made up with the others,” he said. “I’ve got it on my phone, hold on – he emailed me…”

            While Jean fumbled with his phone, Javert looked over at the counter, to where Gavroche was chatting with Grantaire over the espresso machines. Gavroche caught his eye, and Javert signed for coffee, nodding when Gavroche signed to clarify the size.

            “Here,” Jean said, holding out his phone to Javert over the table. “Does this help?”

            Javert scanned the list open in Jean’s email, scrolling through with one finger while Jean kept his hold on the phone. There were a few names he recognised – some he’d already reprimanded, some he hadn’t known to – and some entries merely ranks or physical descriptions, all accompanied by lists of minor and major impositions made on the protesters. He scrolled back to the top of the page with a flick of his finger.

            “Could you send a copy of this to me?” he said. “You have my work email, yes?”

            “I’ll send it through tonight,” Jean nodded, slipping his phone back in his pocket. “Now,” he went on, returning his attention to the table top and gathering Javert’s long hands up in his own in a tangle of palms and fingers. Javert jumped at the easy warmth. “How was the rally? From your perspective.”

            He would have spoken immediately if he could have; but Jean’s comfortable touch had shocked the breath from his lungs. Would this simple affection always surprise him? It seemed to Javert as if he could never possibly grow used to it.

            He shook himself.

            “Uh, smooth,” he answered, proudly speaking over the waver in his voice. He realised he was staring at their hands on the table. “Only two arrests for assaulting an officer. No serious outbreaks of violence, no officers under my direction stepped too far out of line. Crowd dispersal was difficult, but it always is. The marchers were passionate but respectful.” His fingers twitched under Jean’s stroking thumbs. “It went surprisingly well,” he finished, and cleared his throat. At that, Jean raised their hands so he could kiss Javert’s knuckles, then lowered all twenty fingers to the table again, loosening his grip a fraction.

            “I’m glad to hear it,” he said; and he certainly looked it. At that moment, Grantaire approached their table, with Javert’s espresso in hand.

            “Gav says to stop being cute,” they drawled, putting the coffee down by Javert’s elbow, “it’s making him want to puke.”

            “Please remind Gavroche who pays his wages,” Javert muttered, only too eager to extract one hand from Jean’s small, fond embrace to grab the coffee and bury his nose in the glass.

            “Why are you bringing the order?” Jean asked. “Is this a regular thing? I’m happy to pay you for the bother, if you –”

            Grantaire scoffed, a brief, cacophonous sound. “Nah, don’t get ahead of yourself, Mr Cosette’s Dad,” they said. “It’s just because Gav was too grossed out to bring you the thing himself. Fuck knows where Cosette is, dealing with you two’s meant to be her job.”

            “She’s at the debriefing with Enjolras and the rest,” said Jean, whose hands were _still on Javert’s_. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be there?”

            Grantaire shrugged. “Didn’t go to the rally,” they said. “Drew some Aristotle doodles on my essay notes instead, seemed like it’d achieve about as much. Lot less stressful, too.”

            Jean frowned at them, but Javert nodded in approval.

            “Sound reasoning,” he muttered into his coffee, lifting it for another gulp and being suddenly stayed by Jean’s fingers over his.

            “For heaven’s sake, Javert,” he laughed, _“enjoy it._ It’s not a shot of alcohol, you can drink it slowly.”

            Grantaire sighed wistfully. “If only it were,” they said. “I could’ve polished it off before it ever got to the table.”

            Jean’s eye turned, stern and worried, on the kid.

 _“Grantaire –”_ he began, but was cut off by another multiplied sound of amusement and dismissal.

            “I’m _kidding,”_ they sang, as they swanned away from the table, both Jean and Javert’s eyes following them back to the counter.

            “I worry about them,” Jean sighed. Javert, helpless to counteract the concern in Jean’s brow, decided to test a theory. He set down his coffee in its saucer, and scooped up Jean’s hands in his own, as Jean had done to him. Bending his head, he pressed a silent kiss to Jean’s fingers, all tangled up in his palms.

            When he looked up, Jean was gazing at him with a smile of pure sentiment, all patience and surprise, and more merciful than Javert had ever thought possible. His eyes went wide, and he cleared his throat.

            “Send me that list,” he said, voice hoarse. He released Jean’s hands. “I’ll see what I can do about the officers who caused trouble.”

            Jean was still smiling at him, so Javert swallowed and busied himself with his coffee.

            “How’s Cosette?” he asked. It was a tactful deflection: Jean was always thoroughly distracted by talk of his daughter, and it worked as well as ever. Javert was left to admire the man without the distraction of his terrifying, longed-for affection.

 

* * *

 

            Javert was hazily refilling the coffee plunger when his buzzer went off. He didn’t know what time it was, but he knew it had to be late, and there was only one person who would visit him late. He rolled his eyes and abandoned the coffee to shuffle towards the receiver by the door, pressing the button and repressing a sigh.

            “Yes, Jean?”

            A faint chuckle reached him through the speaker.

            “Javert,” came Jean’s tinny voice, “how long have you been awake?”

            “Don’t know,” Javert replied, narrowing his eyes at the receiver through his swimming vision. _“Why?”_

            “You left three files in the shop this evening,” Jean answered. “Cosette said she found them while she was cleaning up but I was out for a run, I only got back an hour ago. Can I come up and bring them to you, or were you already going to bed?”

            Javert scoffed, as he gradually fell forward until his forehead leant against the wall. “Why would I be going to bed?”

            Silence eked through to him from the speaker for a long moment before Jean answered.

            “Javert,” he said slowly, “it’s past midnight.”

            With a shrug and a sigh, Javert released the receiver and pressed the button for the front door, buzzing Jean through. He pushed himself off the wall and unlocked his door, then went back to the kitchen, vaguely registering the bite of cold tiles against his bare feet. He was filling the kettle when Jean knocked.

            “It’s unlocked,” he called; and felt his heart lift at the unlatching of the door.

            “Javert?” came Jean’s voice; then: “Oh. Coffee? Really Javert, at this hour?”

            Javert switched on the kettle and turned. “I have work to do.”

            Good God, Jean Valjean was _beautiful._ He stood in the space between Javert’s kitchen and front door, where sparse carpet became tile, unwinding what looked like a hand-made scarf from around his neck, and where the lingering winter cold had nipped his cheeks and hooked nose, they were flushed very slightly. His soft, thin hair was a little messy at the end of the day, his beard neat and trimmed, and his hands, as he removed a pair of fingerless gloves, stretched and clenched in the new warmth of Javert’s flat, clumsy and kind.

            Javert shook off the distracting image, and turned back to the kettle.

 _“Javert,”_ Jean was scolding him, entering the kitchen and dropping a stack of manila folders onto the counter. But his approaching steps faltered, and his head cocked to one side, making Javert narrow his eyes over his shoulder.

 _“What?”_ he said, in a low voice.

            “How long have you been awake?” Jean sighed.

            Javert shrugged, avoiding his gaze. Asking twice was a sure sign of something. “Couple days?” he answered. He hoped his voice wasn’t slurring. “I’m fine. I was just on my feet all day chasing down leads, I didn’t have time to get my reports done. And Wilson’s messing up this assault and robbery case, I’m making notes for him.”

            Jean huffed a breath out through his nose, over a tight mouth. He finished the walk towards Javert, but only reached around him to switch off the kettle as Javert’s eyes went wide with outrage.

            “You’re going to bed, Javert.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “You need to sleep.”

            It looked to Javert as if Jean had planted his feet like the roots of an old tree, and would not budge in any storm. Well then: Javert would have to take out an axe.

            “These reports were due today,” he insisted. “If I don’t file them in the morning, the paperwork will be set back a day, and then another day, until it falls on some inexperienced constable to fix a problem that was never theirs. This is _my_ responsibility, would you rather I ignore it and let the blame fall on someone who doesn’t deserve it?”

            Jean looked uncomfortable. _Good._

            “And Wilson’s robbery,” he added – “do you _really_ think there’s something to be gained from a few hours of sleep when instead I could be helping to bring justice to someone who’s been mugged and beaten? Wilson’s not giving credence to his primary witness just because he’s homeless, he’ll be flailing around for _days_ before he decides the man’s worth his time, then there’ll be no chance for the victim to get their belongings back, _or_ for the culprit to be caught and stopped before it happens again. Do you think leaving a woman beaten, confused, and robbed, without explanation or justice, is worth a few hours of _sleep?_ I have a _duty_ to fulfil, Jean, I’m not going to go ignoring it just so I can get a bit of _sleep,_ people are relying on us to help them, and if we can’t do that, what good are we? If Wilson fails this woman, then as his superior officer it’s up to me to supply the solution. No one else is going to.”

            This last was merely a grumble, growled out as Javert crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the floor. He refused to look up at Jean’s quiet sigh.

            “You still need to look after yourself,” he said, in a soft and beguiling tone. “You can’t make up for the mistakes of the rest of the police force by working yourself to the bone.”

            “Yes I can,” Javert spat, and realised too late how petulant it sounded. He bit his tongue, mouth going sour, until Jean’s hands fell upon his upper arms, and he noticed just how tense he’d become. He forced his shoulders to drop.

            “How close are you to being done with the reports?” Jean asked, as his thumbs stroked at the skin of Javert’s arms below the sleeves of his sleeping shirt.

            “Out of three,” he mumbled, “I’m nearly finished the second.”

            Jean nodded. He was moving closer somehow, and Javert’s arms were beginning to unwind.

            “And Wilson’s assault and robbery,” Jean said, “how long should that take?”

            Javert shrugged; his hands were on Jean’s chest, and they began now to pick at his coat collar.

            “A few hours?” he said. “I have to review the testimony from the victim as well as the witness statements, I can’t access the security camera footage from home but I have some of the stills printed out, if I can piece together which direction the culprit ran and what weapon they were using, because Wilson’s _still_ stuck on a nondescript ‘blunt instrument’, I can narrow down the parameters for a search to certain features, then I need to write scripts for tomorrow’s interviews for the constables, because Wilson won’t do them and then he won’t get any of the information he needs, only what he _thinks_ he needs, then I need to write plans for the different possible outcomes of tomorrow’s investigation, I’ve thought of four, but there could be more –”

            He was cut off by Jean’s arms around his back, and the kiss that was placed on his cheek.

            “All right,” Jean chuckled, and kissed him again. “All right. Here’s what you’re going to do.”

            Javert leaned down and hooked his chin over Jean’s shoulder, muttering, “You’re not my superior officer, Jean.”

            “No, I’m not,” Jean conceded. “But I am your very worried partner.”

            Javert buried his face in Jean’s shoulder and couldn’t protest.

            “Now. You’re going to finish that second report,” Jean said, “and leave the third for the morning. Then you’re going to do only the most immediate work you _can_ do on Wilson’s case.”

            “And what,” Javert muttered into Jean’s neck, “do you class as _the most immediate work?”_ His hands were hanging around Jean’s waist, and Jean’s fingers now were tracing through his tied-back hair.

            “Review the statements,” Jean said, “and examine the photographs. Come to what conclusions you can, and write the interview scripts. Everything else is either provisional, or relies on evidence you can’t access from here. Right?”

            Javert didn’t answer; it was a clear admittance of defeat.

            “And no more coffee,” Jean added. Javert reared back in offence, but was stopped by Jean’s hand on one cheek, and his smiling lips pressed to the other. “You’re going to sleep after this. I suspect you’ve been awake for far too long.”

            Javert snorted. “And where’s your evidence?” A stern, patient look was levelled up at him.

            “You just told me you’ve been awake for a _couple of days.”_

            Javert’s eyes shifted up and away as he mentally reviewed the conversation.

            “Oh.”

            “Finish that report, Inspector,” Jean finished, smiling. “I’m not leaving until you’re in bed asleep.”

 

            Jean put the coffee away, under Javert’s direction, while Javert went back to his desk and finished off the second report. As he worked, Jean slipped the folders he’d brought under Javert’s elbow, then wiped down the kitchen counters and sink, then stood in the middle of the flat and huffed a sigh.

            “You really ought to buy an armchair or something,” he mused, causing Javert to scoff.

            “Believe it or not,” he drawled from the desk, “I didn’t furnish my apartment with visitors in mind. You’re the only person who’s ever come here and needed to sit down.”

            “Who _else_ comes here, then?” Jean asked, and Javert could hear the teasing smile in his voice.

            “Postie. Plumber. Sergeant Lang sometimes has to drop off files when I get sick. If you want me to get any sleep tonight,” he countered, “maybe you should stop interrupting my work.”

            Silence answered him. The thought struck him that perhaps that had been an insensitive way of putting it. It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ Jean talking, but it _was_ distracting, so of course it _would_ delay his work, and wasn’t that exactly what Jean had been trying to speed along? His pen hovered above the page for a moment, before he tossed it down and span around in his chair, standing and striding the two steps between him and Jean.

            “Sorry,” he mumbled, “that came out wrong.”

            Jean’s broad arms were crossed over his expansive chest, but the fond, long-suffering expression on his face belied the posture.

            “I thought so,” he said. One arm uncrossed itself to lift Javert’s chin as he kissed him, once, on the lips. In the night, in the dim light and warmth of his flat, in the half-blurred stupor of sleeplessness and obsessive work, it seemed addictive. Javert closed his eyes and pressed forward, chasing Jean’s mouth as he retreated and winning a chuckle and another, longer kiss from him before he put one firm hand on Javert’s chest to hold him at bay.

_“Get back to work, Javert.”_

            Javert rolled his eyes and returned to the desk. Jean idled away the time by clearing away the mugs and old plates on Javert’s desk, then examining the neat rows of legal texts, police guidelines, and, bewilderingly, astronomy books, lined on the shelves to Javert’s left. There wasn’t a single novel. Eventually, Jean capitulated to the lack of furniture, and, after a quiet request for permission which was immediately and casually given, took off his shoes and sat down on Javert’s bed.

            “You can read a book if you like,” Javert murmured, halfway through the statements in Wilson’s case, when Jean seemed not to have moved at all for long minutes. “Just put it back in its place when you’re done.”

            Outside, a few cars swished past around the corner on Crystal Street. Jean stood, the bed creaking very faintly at the movement, and returned to the bookshelf next to the desk, his fingers hovering centimetres from the spines. As Javert moved on to the photographed evidence, Jean gingerly pulled out a book on the constellations of the Zodiac and returned to the bed, drawing a pair of reading glasses out of his coat pocket.

            By the time Javert started on interview scripts, his vision had started to swim, and he was blinking far too often. The coffee would have prevented it, he knew, but he shrugged away his irritation at Jean’s intervention. Jean was wrong, of course – Javert was perfectly capable of surviving the night and getting the work done – but at least he was well-intentioned.

            The interview scripts were somehow completed, and he saved the document to his intranet folders, rubbing his face and yawning. One hand absently trailed aside to scratch the back of his neck and tug at the elastic holding his hair in place, which, as usual, tangled and protested at the distracted handling. As he opened a new Word document, he grunted at the damn thing, and pulled harder, only managing to tighten the knot and pull a few hairs from his scalp. He registered the sound of a shutting book and a tutting sigh from behind him.

            “Let me…”

            The bed creaked again; near-silent footsteps crossed the room; and a book on the constellations of the Zodiac appeared at his elbow. Then there were hands on his hair, gently pushing away his own long fingers and starting to pluck at the elastic. Javert took the opportunity to start typing. At the base of his skull, his hair was carefully tugged and twisted: never enough to hurt, but enough to free the elastic, and eventually set his hair loose, springing and spilling down the back of his neck. Blunt fingers started to card through it, scalp to end, teasing out the knots as the kinks in the grey strands reassumed their natural places.

            Jean kissed the top of Javert’s head, looped his arms around Javert’s neck, and leaned his chin around him so he could see the computer screen.

            “Javert,” he said, “that looks suspiciously like a list of recommendations for Sergeant Wilson for actions to take according to evidence outcomes.”

            He had almost verbatim read out the title of the document.

            “Yes,” said Javert.

            “If I recall correctly,” Jean replied, “that wasn’t one of the things you had to finish before going to sleep tonight.”

            “This morning,” Javert corrected, still typing. Jean sighed next to his ear.

            “Close the document,” he ordered. “You need to sleep.”

            “I’ve just gotten started,” Javert countered absently, “I may as well finish it while I’m here…”

            He felt more than saw as Jean rolled his eyes.

            “Suddenly I understand how you get so many sleepless nights,” Jean muttered, and leaned forward even further to rest his right hand over Javert’s, stilling it. “Save the document,” he said, “and go to sleep. You can finish it in the morning.”

            “I thought I was finishing the last report in the morning,” Javert muttered, watching their hands.

            “You are,” said Jean. “Then you’re going to go to work, find the evidence you can’t get from here, and finish this when you actually have all the information you need to do it properly.”

            Javert’s lips pressed together. He saved the document with his left hand, then slipped his right out from under Jean’s to shut down the computer. Jean, smiling, kissed his cheek, and retreated, slipping the book he’d taken down back into place on its shelf. As the screen before him went dark, Javert found it was becoming difficult to keep his eyes open. He took a deep breath; then let it rush out, raising his hands from the desk to bury his face in them, pressing circles into his cheeks and eyes.

            He was very, very tired.

            “Come on, Javert,” Jean hushed him. “Time for bed.”

            Hands on Javert’s arm and under his elbow helped lift him out of the chair, and led him towards the bed. Jean asked if he was sleeping in the clothes he was in; he answered yes; and then he was deposited on the mattress, poured out from Jean’s arms and into the tangled sheets. Between the two of them (mostly because of Jean), they wrestled the doona and sheet out from under him and angled him more or less with his head on the pillow and his feet towards the other end. Then Jean patted Javert’s shoulder, and straightened, and turned to leave.

 _“Whoa,_ no-o,” Javert slurred, half-rising after him and lunging out to catch his hand, “no, please stay. Please come to bed.” He looked up at Jean’s face, which was watching him with hesitant surprise. “If you like,” Javert added. “Please. But only if you like.” He wasn’t certain if it was his supporting arm, or Jean’s hand clutched in his, which was keeping him sitting up.

            “Javert…” Jean started, but cut himself off when Javert frowned and pulled at his hand.

            “I mean, only if you want to,” he murmured, looking at Jean’s hand, “but, y’know. Please come to bed.”

            Jean sighed at him, and smiled to one side.

            “All right,” he hummed, slowly. “All right, I’ll come to bed.”

            Javert grinned, all gums and teeth and one lip curled up over his incisor, as he flopped backwards onto the pillow. He found that Jean was chuckling at him, and laughed in answer.

            “Hold on a minute,” Jean sighed, shaking his head at them both, “your door’s still unlocked. And I need to text Cosette…”

            Javert – still beaming faintly – shifted, shuffling himself aside to make room on the king single mattress and pressing his back to the wall. Jean locked the door and switched off the light, asking about borrowing a pair of trackpants or pyjamas, and Javert mumbled something into the pillow about the bottom left dresser drawer, and how they’d be too long, but at least they both had narrow hips, and he should leave the hair elastic on top of the dresser too, and did he have a shirt he could wear, and…

            Jean changed as he laughed at Javert’s exhausted attempts to direct him, doing as he was told with ease. He left his own singlet on, over a grey pair of trackpants he found, and folded his coat, trousers, and shirt on top of his shoes next to the washing basket at the end of the bed. Then he sat by Javert’s knees with his phone in hand, gradually taking off his socks as he texted.

            “I thought you were coming to bed,” Javert muttered, dragging himself closer to Jean until he was able to raise himself far enough to loop one arm over Jean’s shoulder and the other around his waist. Jean chuckled underneath him at the tickle of Javert’s stubble against his neck.

            “I’m texting Cosette,” he said. “I’ll need her to open the café without me in the morning…”

            Javert kissed his neck, revelling in the closeness of him, the comfort of the closeness, and the ease of the comfort. Jean was warm and strong and gentle, and when he finally tossed his phone and socks on top of his shoes, he was shivering with silent laughter. He took hold of Javert’s hand, draped over his right shoulder, and with his free hand lifted Javert’s chin so he could kiss his mouth.

            It was lovely. Comfort and silence and warmth, kissing Jean in his own bed, having spent an hour with him in his flat while he worked, and Jean read, and the scent of unmade coffee melted away. Javert’s eyes drifted shut, and his weary arms gripped a little tighter around Jean’s chest. The bed creaked under their double weight as Jean shifted, pressing Javert back to the mattress and following fast enough that Javert felt no need to complain about the distance; then they were lying next to each other, kissing lazy, languid, and long. Somehow, Javert ended up on his back, with Jean leaning over him with one elbow by his ear and the other hand cupping Javert’s jaw. He wanted to reciprocate properly; but his lips were going numb, and he didn’t have the strength to do more than kiss back and brush his fingers against Jean’s waist. Eventually, he turned his head aside, trying to breathe, and felt the brush of Jean’s whiskers and lips move along his jaw and neck, and he groaned low and pleasant in his chest.

            “Go to sleep, Javert,” Jean whispered beside him, settling back on the bed. It was so small that, even with Javert pressed to the wall, they were still forced to tangle together, limbs bumping in the night. Jean pulled the covers up, and turned on his side, facing Javert with one arm folded under the pillow and his head. Javert smiled into the dark, and pressed himself close, burrowing into the blankets and Jean’s embrace until his feet were hanging over the end of the bed, his head half-supported on Jean’s shoulder and his arms alternately squashed and extended, one crammed between their chests and the other slung over Jean’s slim waist.

            He was asleep within minutes.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_August 31_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac,_ _Jiemba_ _Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        you are not gonna BELIEVE the text i just woke up to

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        TELL ALL

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        from dad, this is the whole thing i promise, quoted exactly

                        “Cosette - you’re probably asleep already, just letting you know that I’m spending the night at Javert’s flat, so you’ll have to open up without me in the morning. Don’t worry, we’re both fine, it was just more convenient. I’ll see you in the morning. love dad xoxo”

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        omg did they do the do

                        THEY DID THE DO

                        also please please please tell me he always signs his texts like that holy SHIT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        lol R i really really doubt that, i’m p sure dad’s celibate…?

                        also yes he does always sign his texts like that unless it’s in the middle of a conversation, he’s a sweetheart, we all know this

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yeah he WAS celibate till he had that sweet cop bod all to himself

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        ew, R, please don’t

                        this is my DAD

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        also I am 100% certain javert’s ace

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        no way, seriously???

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        also good morning, i’m very happy for them and this development in their relationship, that’s a really nice step

                        yeah, we were joking about his crush on leblanc in front of him once and enjolras was weirded out so i said it was an allo thing and javert DENIED IT

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        WHEN WAS THIS

             

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        then he realised he basically outed himself as aro/ace to a bunch of uni students, and said, AND I QUOTE

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        omg when was this???

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        “unless the aromantic community uses the prefix too”

                        oh you were there cosette, remember when he came in with the defaced petitions from the station

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        holy sweet baby jesus protect us all, that is MAGICAL

                        DOES BAHOREL KNOW

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        omg really???? that must’ve been just after i left right??

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        WELL I KNOW NOW

                        GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

                        AND WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING IT IS

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        lol bahorel did we wake u up

                        soz

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        yeah i just realised it’s still only, like…. 6am………………….

                        combeferre i can understand but R why the heck are you awake??

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        oh i just finished writing my beauty essay that was due two days ago

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        WHO CARES ABOUT BEAUTY

                        THE ONLY BEAUTY ANYONE EVER NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT IS THE FACT THAT MY PROBLEMATIC INDIGENOUS FAVE IS GETTING LESS PROBLEMATIC BY THE DAY AND NOW I FIND OUT HE’S BEEN ACE THIS WHOLE TIME NOT EVEN JUST A BIG OLE CISGAY BUT *ACE*

                        I AM *ECSTATIC* ABOUT THIS DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        i think we can make an estimation, yes

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        :DD

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        it’s honestly the best news i’ve ever heard in my entire life, yes

                        our ranks are gROWING

                        SOON WE SHALL AMASS AN ARMY

                        where’s e we all know he’s best at the rousing speechifying

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        Your forces shall destroy all of us R, we know this, enjolras has made that perfectly clear

                        Honestly I can’t believe he didn’t just gloat about this discovery for a week

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        i told him to try and keep it quiet, javert didn’t look very comfortable with us knowing

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        wow u rlly stuck to ur guns on that one didn’t u ferre

                        : |

 

 **Imogen** **Combeferre**

                        ……

                        yeah, whoops

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        oh ferre for heaven’s sake

 

**Jiemba Bahorel**

                        We should probably shut up before we wake someone else up btw

                        I’m literally gonna mute this chat and go back to sleep

                        Shut the hell up u early monsters

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        haha yeah, this “opening the shop” thing isn’t happening very fast

                        ok i’ve got a run and prayers to do, enjoy your mornings everyone uvu

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        cosette get fuckin ready, i am coming directly there for about eight shots of coffee injected directly into my bloodstream before my lecture today, i’m leaving very soon

                        so i’ll be there in like

                        4 hrs

                        gET READY

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i’ll keep customers away from the prime sketching tables for u R

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ur my favourite barista

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        i know uvu

 

* * *

 

            Javert woke suddenly, as he usually did, with his breath sharp and his eyes dragging open. He was lying with the covers shoved half-down, with the cool wall on one side and someone’s warm chest on the other, and a heavy arm draped over his belly. His own arms were tangled up on top of him, and someone was breathing softly against his shoulder. The head next to his on the pillow shifted in a small, nuzzling motion that pressed a long nose and scratchy beard momentarily to his cheek.

            “You awake?” Jean mumbled next to him. He took a breath – in, out – and, not opening his mouth, hummed a positive response. Jean pressed a little closer to him, and the nose and beard pushed forward again to kiss Javert’s jaw.

            “Good morning, Javert.”

            For a moment, Javert was still, surprise and delight and a certain mortification at his own shock paralysing him; before he mentally shook himself, huffed out a breath, and shuffled about, rolling onto his side. He closed his eyes and ducked his head so he could return the embrace with his arm around Jean’s back and his face pressed to his collarbone. He felt silent laughter shake Jean’s chest, and the arm around his waist tightened. Javert sniffed, snuffled, licked his lips, swallowed, but didn’t speak; he was enjoying himself very much. It was like hugging, he supposed, though less coordinated and more lazy, and exactly as surprisingly enjoyable. He wondered how he’d gone so long without trying this: without knowing the sheer, easy delight of cuddling Jean Valjean as the sun started to rise beyond the flimsy curtain.

            He shoved his chin forward to kiss Jean’s shoulder through his singlet, then shuffled up, peeling his eyes open again and brushing his nose against Jean’s as he gained his level. Jean was blurry from this close up. Javert mustered all of his strength, and whispered, “You getting up?”

            Jean’s blinks were slow and lazy, and he was smiling.

            “No,” he said. Javert nodded, placed a peck on Jean’s chin, and sat up. He ignored Jean’s frown and plucking fingers, and manoeuvred himself until he could stand on the bed and wobble down the mattress between Jean and the wall, springing off at the end. He needed to pee.

            A few minutes later – with empty bladder, brushed teeth, and totally untamed hair – Javert left the bathroom again, crossing straight to the kitchen and the cupboard where he kept coffee, tea, plunger, and mugs. Behind him, the bed creaked faintly with Jean’s movements.

            “What time is it?” Jean asked from across the room. Javert glanced up at the clock next to the fridge as he filled the kettle, and took a deep breath, swallowing and clearing his throat on the exhale. The water, cut off, plunged the flat back into quiet.

            “’Bout six,” he answered.

            Jean chuckled lazily. “And I thought I got up early,” he said, half into the pillow. “You’re very energetic for six in the morning. It usually takes until I start opening the shop till I can move like you do.”

            Javert smiled at the kettle as he switched it on, and didn’t reply. Jean was silent for a while, the only sounds in the flat now the humming of the fridge, and the workmanlike rustle, hush, and clatter as Javert measured out coffee into the plunger, set aside the spoon, and took down one plain white mug, and one dark blue one, decorated with a faint smattering of what at second glance turned out to be stars. He wriggled his toes against the cold.

            “You’re not talking,” said Jean. The bed creaked again. “Have I done something wrong?”

            The rush of Javert’s sigh joined the low bubbling of the heating kettle. He shook his head at the counter.

            “Javert,” Jean argued, “if I’ve done something wrong you need to tell me. I don’t want to do it again. You asked me into your bed last night but that doesn’t mean I had permission to – to hold you or kiss you or any of that, I just assumed –”

            Javert sighed again, chest heaving and slumping, and span on his heel, crossing the room just in time to set his hands on Jean’s shoulders as he started to rise from the bed. Again, Javert breathed – in, out – swallowed, and cleared his throat. He licked his lips, and when he spoke, it was barely more than a hoarse murmur.

            “I don’t like speaking in the morning.”

            He tried to temper the sentence with a smile, but Jean just looked up at him, as concerned as ever. Javert resigned himself to a chatty morning, and released Jean’s shoulders, hands falling to his sides.

 _“Really,”_ he croaked. “It’s not personal, I like when you talk. But I just got up. I’m used to living alone. I like not to talk for a while.”

            Jean’s mouth tightened. “You’re sure?” he said. “If I’ve done something you’re not comfortable with, you have to let me kn–”

            Javert heaved a sigh, rolling his eyes just a bit before catching Valjean’s wide, sleepy gaze with his own heavy-lidded one.

 _“Honest,”_ was all that he said. Jean scrutinised him for a long moment, brow furrowed; until he finally tried a little smile, and watched as Javert visibly relaxed, limbs going looser and mouth going gentle as the kettle clicked off. Javert, belatedly, realised they already had a workaround.

 _‘Coffee?’_ he signed. Jean smiled at him and fell back into the bed

            “Yes please,” he said.

_‘Milk and sugar?’_

            “Neither, thank you.”

            Javert’s mouth opened in a wide smile, lips curling over his teeth again, and in the light of day, he remembered how oddly everyone had looked at him when he’d smiled like that as a kid, and how rarely he used it now that he was older. But Jean just grinned blissfully up at him from where he was still half-tangled in Javert’s doona, his head on Javert’s pillow and his breath filling Javert’s flat. Javert turned back to the coffee with something curiously like settled happiness curling behind his sternum.

            “You’ll be finishing that report this morning then?” Jean asked from the bed. The smell of brewing coffee furled through the room as Javert poured water over the grounds and nodded at the counter. Jean hummed at him. “And will you come to Newtown with me? We can take a taxi together.”

            Javert scoffed, and half-turned, setting down the kettle, so he could sign properly at Jean.

_‘Then how will I get home? I’ll bike, of course.’_

            Jean chuckled at him as he rolled over in the bed, sprawling half on his side and half on his front. “I take your point.”

            Eventually, as Javert let the coffee steep and retreated to shave and shower, Jean got up and changed back into his own clothes, leaving the borrowed trackpants folded neatly over the bedspread he’d pulled taut and straight. Javert stopped and narrowed his eyes at the made bed as he passed it on the way back to the kitchen – hair half-up in his hands and elastic around his fingers – but made no comment except to meet Jean’s raised eyebrow and sigh. He booted up his computer and threw together some cereal and milk, and when Jean joined him in the kitchen with searching hands and asked if he was okay to speak now, Javert smirked as he poured out his coffee, and said, “Yes.” Javert ate breakfast as he finished the last report, and, behind him, Jean ate a slice of toast, drank some coffee, and disappeared into the shower. When he returned, smelling of Javert’s shampoo, he asked for a kiss for which Javert not too unwillingly left his work.

            They both tasted of Oxfam coffee without sugar.

            In the end, Javert whined and pulled away from Jean to pack his bike’s saddlebags and get properly dressed, and only once he was done with the report did he find Jean’s arms again while the man cleaned up after breakfast, despite Javert’s protests that he didn’t have to. Javert tied his boots, and kissed Jean again; turned on the dishwasher, and kissed Jean again; and was nearly pulled back down onto the bed before he realised it was already past seven.

            “I have to go,” he hummed down against Jean’s lips, eyes half-closed and one knee already pressed to the mattress. Jean smiled against him, and pressed a lingering, close-mouthed peck to his mouth.

            “All right,” he said, low and patient. “Will I see you at the shop?”

            “Probably not until lunch.” Javert was retreating already, aiming for his bike in the hallway and pulling on a pair of gloves but still with his eyes fixed on Jean, walking backwards. He stopped in the middle of the room, and tilted his head. “Are you coming?”

            Jean seemed to shake himself as if into wakefulness.

            “Yes, of course.”

            “Will you call a taxi, or…?” Javert juggled keys and helmet as he opened the door.

            “I can just take a train,” said Jean with a shrug, slipping past into the corridor outside. “I wouldn’t mind a walk, too, and I’ll get that on the way to the station.”

            “You know the way?” Javert asked, wheeling out his bike and leaning it against his hip as he shut the door behind them. “It’s just straight down the main road, turn right once you cross the train line.”

            “Thank you,” Jean smiled. “I have my phone, if I lose my way.”

            “I’ll be impressed if you do,” Javert drawled, drawing a snort of laughter from Jean. He felt as if he might start levitating there in hallway from sheer joy.

            “Jean?” he asked, stopping him just as he turned towards the stairs. “Could I – kiss?”

            Jean’s smile broadened out delightfully. “We’re getting faster at that,” he said, as he tugged his scarf tight and stepped closer, and they leaned in just briefly for a kiss which wanted to linger, but knew it couldn’t.

            “You go first,” Javert said in a low voice when they parted. “I don’t want to accidentally hit you with my bike.”

            “Ever the officer,” Jean crooned at him, “putting the safety of community members first.”

            Javert snorted as he lifted his bike. _“Brat.”_ From in front of him as they descended the stairs, he sensed Jean’s semi-mirthful frown.

            “It was in _earnest,”_ he insisted, passing the words back over his shoulder as they went. Javert only snorted again, to cover the swelling sensation in his chest. Surely there was something wrong with his ventricles, that the feeling kept occurring. Outside, Javert dropped his bike to the ground, and pointed Jean in the right direction before turning towards Croyden Street to mount his bike and join the traffic. At the corner, Jean hurried up behind him, asked permission, then kissed him on the cheek, and hurried away, hiding, Javert suspected, a faint blush. The café was one thing, he realised, but they had not done such things outside, on a public street. He felt his own face heat at the adrenaline-rush thought.

            Then he stood on the pedals, looked both ways, and swerved around the corner in the next break in the traffic, the wind chilling his cheeks. He determinedly did not look at Jean as he passed him.

 

* * *

 

_To: jeanf@madeleines.com.au_

_From: jjavert67@gmail.com_

_Date: 31 August 2015, 10:15AM_

_Subject: Morning Routine_

            To Jean,

            I fear there was some miscommunication this morning. For future reference, you should know that I have a very regular morning routine, the interruption of which makes me anxious. My reticence had nothing to do with you, nor was it intended as a rebuff of your presence. This list is not an indication that I expect you to stay over again, just a precaution in case you do. Which is not to say that I don’t want you to stay over again, it was a very enjoyable night, even if I didn’t get as much work done as I might have liked. Just in case you do, for whatever reason, repeat the event, however, you may want to keep in mind these few things.

            1) I don’t like to speak at least until I’ve eaten/drunk something and had a shower. The sign language was an acceptable substitute, but I’d still rather keep to myself. I liked hearing you speak, however, so maybe it would be all right if you talked but didn’t need me to respond.

            2) I use the bathroom first thing after getting up.

            3) I prefer to make coffee then, if I make it at all; then shower, then eat some cereal or toast while catching up on work. I would rather not be disturbed while working, but I was comfortable interacting with you while I ate.

            4) If I make coffee at this stage, I drink it from the mug with stars on it.

            5) I usually leave for work at around 0715, though this varies according to how much work I have to do, and whether or not I want to spend more time in your shop that morning. When I can’t bike, I leave around 0705 and walk to Petersham Station. Though I am usually only rostered on from 0900, I prefer to get to Newtown by 0730 to give me time to put away my bike, get coffee, and settle down into work. If I have a lot of work to do, I will leave sometime between 0630 and 0700 and get to work earlier.

            6) Throughout the morning, I need time to shower, dress, eat, work, and pack my bags. If I seem brusque, it’s probably because one or more of these things still needs to be done.

            7) I absolutely cannot leave any later than 0840 on weekdays, or 0940 on Saturdays, subject to change if I have to catch a train.

            8) I am uncomfortable with people remaining unsupervised in my flat, not because I don’t trust them (although in some cases I would not) (you are not one of these cases), but only because I like to know who uses what of my things, and when, and where, and what happens to them when they’re used, and if they get put back in the right place, etc.

            I would also be happy to discuss and try to accommodate any routines you prefer to stick to in the mornings. I apologise for my morning breath; yours was bearable. If there was anything particularly discomforting about the way I slept, please let me know.

            Yours,

            Inspector Javert

 

 

_To: jjavert67@gmail.com_

_From: jeanf@madeleines.com.au_

_Date: 31 August 2015, 10:23AM_

_Subject: RE: Morning Routine_

            Javert,

            Thank you for the email! It cleared a few things up, but rest assured I didn’t come away having taken any offence at your attitude. It was clear you had a way of doing things which I was interrupting, and I’m both grateful that you worked around my presence this morning and happy to accommodate your needs in the future.

            As for myself, I don’t have much of a morning routine, so you don’t have to worry too much about interrupting it. When I’m at home I usually wake up around 6, go for a short run with Cosette, then shower, change, and at 7am go downstairs to unlock the front door and start setting up the shop. During this time, I usually eat some toast or a muffin or something, and sometimes have a cup of coffee if it isn’t busy. This is also usually when we take in the milk delivery and start baking. Most of our early morning mixes are prepared the night before, but Cosette and I start putting things in the oven around 7, often with the help of Jehan. The shop, as you know, officially opens at 8, with our workers signing on at 7:45.

            Having said all that, I don’t mind changes to my routine if they don’t affect the running of the shop. Cosette is able to set up by herself so long as it doesn’t happen too often, and if now and then I miss my run or have breakfast a little late, it doesn’t matter to me much. I am, however, very bad at sleeping in.

            Your morning breath was also bearable, and you drool slightly when you sleep on your side, but I don’t mind. I suffered much worse raising Cosette. Regardless of misunderstandings, I very much enjoyed last night and this morning at your flat, and would be open to repeating the experience, at your house or mine. Although I think my bed is even smaller than yours.

            Love,

            Jean

 

 

_To: jeanf@madeleines.com.au_

_From: jjavert67@gmail.com_

_Date: 31 August 2015, 10:25AM_

_Subject: RE: Morning Routine_

 

            Jean,

            That sounds acceptable.

            Javert

 

* * *

 

            “He’ll never cave,” Combeferre was saying into his glass. “I mean, I get it, he’s trying to keep himself safe, but he’ll never do it, y’know?” At that moment, Enjolras returned from the bar, where he’d been refilling his water bottle.

            “Still talking about the inspector?” he said, slipping into the booth beside Courfeyrac and across from Combeferre.

            “Y-y-ep,” Courfeyrac groaned. “It’s a wonder we get anything else done.”

            Feuilly kicked him under the table, and Courfeyrac whined facetiously, while Feuilly said, “At least Jiemba didn’t hear you.”

            “Didn’t hear what?” Bahorel butted in as she set three glasses of cider and whiskey on the table and poked at Combeferre’s shoulder until he made room for her on the bench.

            “I understand he’s trying to keep himself safe,” Enjolras shrugged, “but there’s something to be said about safety in numbers. If he openly and publicly declared his support for the movement, they could never fire him, because it would be _obvious_ discrimination.”

            “The police are hardly above obvious discrimination,” said Combeferre. “I understand why he doesn’t want to risk it.”

            “We could go to court for him if it happened,” said Enjolras. “It’d be a great way of boosting the movement after the petition, actually. Bossuet and Bahorel could help –”

            “You know she and I have an agreement to never actually set foot in a court room –”

            “– we could pull in public support, Javert’s got plenty of detractors but he’s also helped a lot of people, and he _is_ infamous. He’s the only Aboriginal person in the New South Wales police force above the rank of sergeant –”

            “You stole that factoid off me,” Bahorel mused.

            “– and if they fired him, it would be the perfect opportunity to point out how racist they really are. Not to mention it would set a precedent for anyone else who suffers similar threats, I know there’s a bunch of lower-ranking officers who signed, they could be in danger too. We wouldn’t even _have_ to do any spinning, the cause is right there. We’d get him his job back.”

            At that moment, Grantaire arrived at the table, with a tray full of glasses and Marius at their heels.

            “New round for everyone,” they cried. “And look what I found Pontmercying around outside not sure if you were all here or not!”

            “D’you think this is an appropriate gift for Cosette?” Marius said, dropping down onto the bench next to Enjolras and pulling a small, painted seashell out of his bag: a surprisingly heavy little thing covered in bright dot painting which fit snugly in his cupped hand. “I saw it at Circular Quay this afternoon, y’know those guys who do the didgeridoo playing to the dance music, and it reminded me of her, but will she like it? Is it appropriative? Will Javert see it and get upset, he’s in that house sometimes. I bought flowers, too, just in case, I just wanted to get her something, y’know, I was thinking about her and then I saw this, and the flowers at Martin Place, and they reminded me so much of how beautiful and nice she is…”

            Across from him, Bahorel mimed retching into her glass, as Feuilly reached around behind Combeferre to pat her solemnly on the back. Grantaire was dispensing the glasses from their tray to everyone at the booth, and Combeferre sniffed at his suspiciously.

            “What is it?” he asked, with narrowed eyes.

            “Water!” Grantaire gasped, holding the empty tray against their chest in false scandal. “One glass of water for every standard drink, that’s the best way of doing it.”

            “I thought the best way of doing it was shots until you pass out?” said Courfeyrac, and Grantaire shrugged.

            “Only if the _aim_ is to pass out,” they said, “which I kind of assumed it wasn’t. If it _was,_ then by all means, cough up and I’ll go buy some tequila and a bag of lemons, but it looked to me like –”

            “Yes, fine!” Courfeyrac laughed. “You got us, we’re not trying to pass out, and _none_ of us can afford a bottle of tequila on a whim.”

            Combeferre cocked one eyebrow at him across the table, and Courfeyrac capitulated.

            “Except me,” he mumbled. “But I don’t even _like_ tequila, so I don’t count.”

            “Don’t have to like it to drink it, Courf, jeez, it’s like you’ve never had a single conversation with me,” Grantaire drawled, spinning the tray between their hands. “Budge up, lovebird,” they added to Marius, “I’m returning the tray and sitting there when I get back.”

            “Okay, but _seriously,”_ Marius said, shuffling up along the bench. “Is it a good gift?”

            “It’s a beautiful gift,” said Courfeyrac, reaching around in front of Enjolras to pat Marius’ hand on the table. “You don’t need to worry.”

            “And it’s not appropriative if you bought it from actual Aboriginal artists,” Enjolras added.

            “I mean, Javert might murder you in your sleep if he sees it,” said Feuilly, “but only because he’d think you’re trying to outdo his courtship of her dad.”

            “I _beg_ your pardon?” Bahorel cried. “Javert would never _break the law,_ that would be simply _unthinkable!_ _Murder?_ In his _sleep?_ How dare you!”

            “Exactly,” Combeferre nodded. “He’d wait until he arrested you for something, then accidentally beat you to death in a holding cell. Isn’t that what cops prefer to do?”

            Courfeyrac snorted, and Marius started to go a bit grey in the face, which only made Courfeyrac laugh harder.

            “Give Cosette the gift,” said Enjolras, “and save the flowers for yourself. Exams are coming up, you deserve a little colour in your room.”

            _“I heard that!”_ Grantaire called from the bar, where they’d been leaning over to talk to one of the bartenders. _“Enjolras was being soppy, I heard it!”_

            “It’s not _soppy,”_ Enjolras shouted back, “it’s _supportive.”_

            _“Same thing!”_ Grantaire cried, and clicked their heels in the air in triumph.

  

* * *

 

 

            “Gerard, watch the back door,” Javert snapped as he approached the little suburban house with Sergeant Lang at his side. “Keep alert; there are probably children inside.” His long legs mounted the two short steps to the front porch in one, and his knock on the screen door was one of absolute certainty.

            “Ms Deakin?” he called, as Gerard slipped out of sight around the clapboard side of the house. “This is Inspector Javert of the Newtown Police, we have a warrant to search this building.”

            From inside, he could hear: shuffles and scrapes, muffled footsteps, a murmur of voices.

            “Ms Deakin, please open the door.”

            The footsteps darted away for a moment, then – as Lang grew a little tense at his side – approached, swift and steady. There sounded a rattle of locks, then the door before them opened by a fraction, and a pair of dark, suspicious eyes peered out at them. Javert drew the warrant from his breast pocket, and held it out.

            “Suzanna Deakin,” he said in a monotone, “we have been authorised to search this house under suspicion of kidnapping and fraud. If you do not let us in, we will enter by force.”

            “There’s nothing here for you,” Deakin said, through tight teeth. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

            “Your ex-husband has accused you of taking your children against the bounds of your custody agr—”

            _“Sir!”_ Gerard’s voice came crackling from the radio at Javert’s shoulder. _“Husband’s just parked out back, he doesn’t look happy, please advise, over.”_

            Even as Deakin’s eyes went wide, Javert pushed the door open against her shoulder.

            “Stay inside,” he snapped, stepping into the house and ignoring Deakin’s protests as his hand went to his shoulder and grabbed at his radio. “Gerard, keep him outside for as long as you can, over” he ordered, shutting the door behind himself and Sergeant Lang and turning to the harried-looking woman before him. “Where are the children?”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, and Javert rolled his eyes.

            “Madam, we have absolutely no time for this,” he said. “We have a warrant to search the premises, and we certainly will, but your ex-husband is outside and liable to do something extremely stupid if he finds the children himself. _Where are they?”_

            Deakin looked up at him, with an expression halfway between confusion and fear. After another moment, she capitulated with a sigh.

            “Upstairs,” she muttered, “in their room.”

            “Lang –” Javert began, but the sergeant was already on his way, pushing past them in the narrow hallway and leaping up the stairs. Javert turned to his radio again.

            “Gerard, update on Robertson. Over.”

            _“He’s definitely seen me,”_ came Gerard’s reply. _“He’s getting out of the car, looks confrontational. Still keep him outside? Over.”_

            “For as long as you can,” said Javert. “I’m taking Deakin and the kids to the station, do your best to get Robertson to Marrickville for questioning. Over.”

            “Inspector!”

            Lang was trying to keep his voice down as he appeared at the top of the stairs, one toddler hefted against his left shoulder and a six-year-old hanging from his right hand. “I saw him outside, he’s yelling at Gerard –”

            Javert ushered him down the stairs, reaching out to take the toddler ( _Jane,_ his memory supplied from the file, an apparent missing children case) and hand her over to Deakin’s waiting arms. “Take Ms Deakin and the children to Newtown, keep them in questioning,” he said. “I’ll deal with Robertson and get back to you as soon as I can.”

            “You mean I’m not under arrest?” Deakin said, as she held the other child ( _Victoria,_ the file had said) against her leg.

            “You most certainly are,” Javert drawled. “Taking the children against the terms of the custody agreement amounts to kidnapping –”

            “They’re _my kids,_ and he’s no good for them –” Deakin shouted in protest, and Javert drew himself up and shut her down.

            _“You still broke the law,”_ he snapped. “I will do everything in my power to earn an acquittal or a reduced sentence for you, and the custody agreement will need to be legally and officially revised, but until then –”

            _“Sir, Robertson’s armed, backup required. Over.”_

            All three adults in the little hallway stiffened. Javert turned to the sergeant.

            “Lang –” he started, but the man was already nodding, turning to Deakin.

            “Keep hold of the children and follow me,” he said to her. “Stay quiet.”

            As they opened the front door, Javert slipped past and dismissed them from his mind as he loped down the hallway, past the stairs, into a small, cluttered kitchen, and towards a flimsy back door. Through the flyscreen, he could see Gerard with her pistol out, pointing it at a slim, blotchy-faced man holding a broad kitchen knife. He pushed open the door with one hand and flicked his handcuffs from their pouch at his belt with the other.

            “Constable, hasn’t anyone ever told you not to bring a gun to a knife fight?”

            Two heads whipped around to him, and he felt his lip curl triumphantly over his teeth.

            “Drop the knife, Mr Robertson,” he said. “This is trespass and attempted assault with a weapon. You’re under arrest.”

            There was a moment – a single, hovering moment – in which Javert wondered if Robertson would complicate things: if he’d lunge forward, or protest, or demand to see his kids or punish Deakin. Then the knife gave a dull thud on the patchy grass, and Gerard was swooping forward to grab it as she holstered her gun, and Javert stepped down off the back porch with his handcuffs out.

 

            The report for Ms Suzanna Deakin read:

 _Unlawful abduction and supervision of children against the terms of a custody agreement_. _Held for questioning at Newtown Police Station for two hours, primarily to protect against angry ex-spouse. (See: Mr Henry Robertson.) Released without charge, 16:18, Thursday 24 th September 2015, under condition of relinquishing care of children until custody revision, TBD._

            The words stung. A woman had broken the law – had broken a lawful custody agreement – and she had been released without charge. Lang had had to take him aside and insist upon the matter, and although all his arguments had been valid, there was a sticking point around which Javert could not manoeuvre. It had only been two days; the woman had in no way mistreated the children or taken them against their will; the man was obviously dangerous; the custody agreement was provably unfair; it was pure misogyny and classism which had led her to such lengths; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

            Gerard had shrugged, and said that, even if Robertson was worried about his children, driving to his ex-wife’s house with a knife at the ready was a provably unstable act. She had interviewed him at Marrickville, charged him with a handful of petty infringements, and released him on the understanding that his children would be provisionally returned to him and the relevant lawyers contacted. There was a meeting scheduled the next week, with three police officers informed of their possible obligations at court.

            Jean would have said that Deakin was innocent, Robertson aggressive, and that any parent kept from their children did nothing wrong by going to extreme lengths to get them back. Javert would have argued that that was precisely what Robertson did; Jean would have brought up the knife; Javert would have said the word _kidnapping_ and Jean would have mentioned the sexism inherent in divorce and custody proceedings; Javert would have snapped about the law, and Jean would have sighed something about empathy, and they would have ended the night with tight mouths and useless apologies.

            Instead, Javert phoned Jean before he left work, and asked him about Cosette, and to come over after closing the shop. He sat next to Jean on his bed at nine o’clock at night, and silently tried to decide if he’d done his job, and if he’d done right, and if those two things were at all compatible.

            He went to bed and failed to sleep, with Jean’s kiss lingering on his cheek, unable to shrug the matter off as a lawyer’s problem as he had used to.

 

            At 1:06 AM, Javert got up to phone Jiemba Bahorel, only realising as he listened to the unbroken trilling on the other end what an absurd time it was.

            Bahorel picked up on the tenth ring.

            “Yeah, what?” she slurred from afar.

            “I want you to release the petition with my name on it,” said Javert, sitting on the edge of his bed with his feet flat on the floor and knees spaced evenly apart, back upright and shoulders only slightly slumped. A long, hissing breath reached him through the speaker.

            “… What?”

             Javert swallowed.

            “I want you to release the petition with my name on the top,” he said, forcing his voice to be still. “It’s Javert, Inspector Javert. I want you to put my name on the petition.”

            “Yeah, I know it’s Javert, but wh—”

            There was a moment of silence, then a rustle and thump, and a hissing he could just decipher.

            _“Feuilly! Up, get up, right now, cop boyfriend’s a fucking miracle –”_ Bahorel’s voice went close and distinct once more. “Let me get this straight,” she said, “you want your name to go public when we go live with this? After all this anonymity stuff, you really want to go through with it?”

            Javert gritted his teeth, and said: “I want to do _something_ right.”

            He heard a rush of snorting laughter. “There’s right and there’s _risky,_ mate, you’ve said enough to let us know you could lose your job doing this.”

            “I know this is right,” Javert insisted. “It’s the just thing to do, it could effect change, it – it would mean something. Something good.”

            “You know we’re sending this thing to the _government,_ right?” said Bahorel, her voice by now no longer slurred with sleep, but hushed and excited. “Fuck it, we’re sending it to your _boss._ There’s gonna be protests, demonstrations, you’ll be linked with all that.”

            Javert hesitated for only a fraction of a moment.

            “It’s the right thing to do,” he said; and if he said it with enough conviction, perhaps he could convince himself that that was enough.

            Bahorel laughed, far too loudly for the hour. “Wow. Well. Welcome to the good person club,” she chuckled. “Starter pack and membership card are in the mail.”

            “Don’t patronise me.”

            “Hey, hey Feuilly, say congratulations, Javert’s becoming a good person, here –”

            The phone went distant for a moment, amidst a chorus of rustling sheets, and Javert heard a faraway voice mumbling something that sounded like _“congrash-h-ns”_ before Bahorel returned to him.

            “We were gonna release the thing next week, but we might bring it forward by a few days – we’ll let you know, me or Enjolras’ll be in touch – is that all right?”

            “It’s up to you,” Javert said, shrugging to himself. “So long as my name is on it.”

            “At the very top, Inspector,” Bahorel grinned, audible even through the phone. “Fucking _hell.”_

 

            He got an afternoon email from Enjolras three days later, informing him of the petition’s release the next morning. When he walked into Madeleine’s for his Monday morning coffee, then, it was with a curling feeling of unease in his belly. As soon as Jean saw him, he rounded the counter and all but ran across the half-empty shop to launch himself at Javert, almost knocking the air from his lungs with his embrace. A moment later, he was drawing back and kissing Javert full on the mouth, then hugging him again, as Javert finally recovered enough of his senses to place his arms gingerly around Jean’s shoulders.

            “I’m not going to ask why you didn’t tell me,” Jean whispered by his cheek. “But you are _wonderful.”_

            “It was nothing,” Javert mumbled, twitching his fingers in the back of Jean’s waistcoat and feeling his face grow warm. Jean pulled away again, and kissed Javert’s cheek, twice.

            “You’re risking your job for this,” he murmured. “Are you – is this for you?” His hands fluttered from the sides of Javert’s neck to rest atop his shoulders. “You’re not doing this as a – as atonement, or to impress me, or get in anyone’s good books, or –”

            “It’s the right thing to do,” Javert said, finding it all too easy not to be insulted by the accusation; he would’ve thought the same of himself only six months earlier, or worse.

            “It’s not exactly appropriate,” Jean reminded him. “It’s barely even legal, some of the stuff they’re planning on doing.”

            “It’s the _right thing,”_ Javert repeated. “The honest thing. I will see that justice is done, no matter what. That’s my job.”

            Jean’s eyes looked wet at that, and Javert felt a thrill of fear at the thought of making him cry, even out of happiness. He harrumphed, a little hysterical, and perfunctorily kissed Jean’s forehead.

            “I need coffee,” he said, as grumpy as ever, and Jean just smiled through his wet eyes. Javert sighed down at him. “And I will _not_ accept one for free.”

  

* * *

 

 

            He had done these before. The unceasing rattle of camera shutters, the creak of shoes and chairs, the click of voice recorders, and the rustle of clothes and notepads, were all familiar to him. A hundred times had he climbed little podiums and sat behind tables surrounded by unthreatening blue décor and banners littered with logos.

            Never before had he been quite so nervous.

            Javert took the stage at his cue from the PR manager behind him, stepping out into the conference room in Parramatta as the camera shutters swelled and the little swarm of journalists straightened in preparation. He sat in the prepared chair, at the prepared table, before the prepared bank of microphones, and ran over the speech in his head.

            He cleared his throat.

            “Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and others of the press,” he said, his own, low drone familiar even to himself. “My name is Inspector John Javert, of the Newtown Command of the New South Wales Police.” He cleared his throat again. “Yesterday morning, a petition was presented to Parliament, the Commissioners of the New South Wales and Queensland Police, and the public, denouncing the actions, past and recent, of Queensland Police officer Senior Sergeant Michael Hills, who in 2007 was acquitted of the murder of a man held in his custody. The petition called for Sergeant Hills’ immediate dismissal, and a new enquiry into the incident of 2007. It carried over twenty thousand signatures, including many officers of the New South Wales and Queensland Police Forces. The first name to appear on the petition was mine.”

            The rush of shutter clicks and scribbling pens; he kept his eyes focused on the faces before him and the far wall, avoiding camera lenses.

            “It is my duty to make clear to the public,” Javert went on, “that I have in recent months been working closely with the group who have been lobbying in support of the campaign to indict Sergeant Hills with murder. My involvement with the campaign was a direct risk to my livelihood and welfare, and until now was kept quiet by myself, Ms Jiemba Bahorel, and the rest of the campaigners. However, I deemed it my duty as a police officer to speak out against the breach of justice performed a second time by Senior Sergeant Hills and the Queensland Police Force.”

            The cameras surged in sound along with a swell of voices, murmuring and calling questions across the room. Javert shut his mouth and stared ahead of him at nothing until the brief din subsided.

            “One of the core values,” he said into the growing silence, “of the New South Wales Police Force, is honour. As police officers, we are meant to act with pride and admiration for our profession, upholding the honour of keeping peace, justice, and the law in place. Throughout my career, I have always acted within these and other principles of the force; now, for the first time, I find that I can’t. A violation of justice has been perpetrated twice over, with Sergeant Hills’ initial crime and acquittal, and now with his continued dangerous behaviour. Knowing that a man like Senior Sergeant Hills is considered my colleague does not inspire me with pride or admiration, but with disgust. If police officers around Australia are employed to uphold the law, there is no place for officers who break it, as Sergeant Hills has repeatedly and tragically done. It is therefore my duty, as a police officer, to speak out against the actions not only of Sergeant Hills himself, but of the rest of his close colleagues and superiors, who have failed to hold him accountable for his actions. I can only hope that the efforts of Ms Bahorel and her fellow campaigners – including myself – will be enough to convince the Commissioners of the New South Wales and Queensland Police Forces that this leniency towards police injustice will not be tolerated by the public or fellow officers.

            “I’ll be taking questions now.”

            The surge of voices was enough to make him shut his eyes for a brief moment in an attempt to stem the tide of sound. He opened them quickly, however, and focused on the nearest journalist – a Chinese woman in the front row, with phone and pen in hand.

            “You,” he said, nodding at her, and she leaned forward as the rest of the room held back.

            “Inspector Javert,” she said, “you said that your previous silence about the campaign was due to the risk it posed to your career, but throughout over a twenty-year career, you’ve never engaged in issues of police corruption even during the days of the Royal Commission, how do you respond to accusations of hypocrisy on your part?”

            Javert sucked on his teeth and resisted fidgeting with his sideburns, clenching his fingers very slightly on the table as more calls came out from the crowd: _“What risk would it pose?”; “Is your ambition more important than a man’s life?”; “Why are you only engaging with Aboriginal issues?”; “Why now?”_ He took a breath, and spoke over them.

            “I have no excuses for my previous reticence,” he said, “though I maintain that I have always personally upheld excellent standards of honesty and justice.” He steamrolled over the brief increase of questions at that. _“I was ignorant,_ and have been recently working to overcome that. As to the risk this campaign poses to my career: I have no intention of moving beyond the rank of Inspector, and my ambition has only ever been to continue to serve the law and justice to the best of my abilities. The fact remains that I have received personal threats which have warned of personal and psychological harm as well as dismissal from the force, which would deprive me of my only source of income. My conscience, in this case, was enough to overcome these threats.”

            “So you could still be fired for speaking out against your colleagues?” a voice from the back demanded. Javert looked towards where it had come from, though he couldn’t tell exactly which face had spoken.

            “That is what I have been led to believe,” he said, “yes.”

            Another surge of chatter; he heard someone ask, _“Who threatened you?”_ , but focused instead on another: _“What steps do you think should be taken against Hills?”_

            “Senior Sergeant Hills,” he said, quieting the crowd, “ought to be immediately dismissed from the Queensland Police, and a retrial organised for the manslaughter if not murder committed eight years ago, with an unbiased jury. Within the police force – around Australia – action must be taken to prevent and remove racism from legal proceedings, from individual arrests to the courts.”

            Javert blinked, trying not to close his eyes for too long, as the noise once more increased. He was getting a headache.

            “No more questions,” he muttered into the microphones, and moved to stand. He saw a white man from the back stand up, saw his mouth form words which reached his ears split-seconds later.

            _“Why now? Inspector, why are you only speaking up now?”_

            Unbidden, he thought of Jean Valjean’s voice, his strength, his coffee, his kisses, his daughter, his generous heart, his kind, unhurtful hands. Javert felt Jean’s hand on his back, knee by his knee, voice in his ear, his love and patience finally moving what Javert recognised as the pitiful beginnings of a soul grown too late to be anything but painful.

            He swallowed down Jean’s moving mouth and stress-induced baking, and leaned back towards the microphones.

            “Personal reasons,” was all he could say. There was nothing more. “Thank you for your time.”

 

            _“Personal reasons?”_

            Cosette greeted him with the words, teasing and pure, as he stalked into Madeleine’s after work that evening. Javert grunted a nothing response.

            “Is he upstairs?” he asked, already walking past the counter where Cosette was working and towards the back of the shop.

            “Going through stock receipts,” Cosette answered, spooning sugar into coffee cups, and called after him: “Did you mean what I think you meant?”

            “Of course!” Javert threw over his shoulder as he brushed past the curtain into the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time, shouting _“Jean?”_ as he went. At the top of the stairs, Jean was sitting on one of the sofas in front of the coffee table, with a smattering of envelopes, letters, and stacks of receipts before him. He turned in his seat as Javert approached, and stood at the sight of him, plucking off his reading glasses.

            “I saw the press conference,” he said, smiling, and Javert couldn’t even roll his eyes at that as he leapt up the last two stairs.

            “I need to kiss you,” he grumbled as he crossed the room, and registered as Jean approved, agreed, and dropped his glasses on the sofa to step up to meet Javert’s embrace.

            He pressed his long, dark hands to either side of Jean’s jaw and tilted his head up, pressing their mouths together and breathing harsh and hard over the top of it. He’d screwed his eyes shut, and at the press of Jean’s hands against his waist, he broke the kiss for just long enough to regain a fraction of his composure and kiss him again, softer and more open.

            A moment later, Javert pulled barely away, and leaned his forehead against Jean’s, squeezing shut his eyes.

            “It was you,” he said, in a low, quiet voice. “The personal reasons. Cosette mentioned it – I meant you, of course I meant you.”

            Jean’s voice was little over a whisper. “Javert –” But he stopped at that, unable to say anything more to express whatever it was that was turning his smile watery and his brows down at the edges, though Javert couldn’t see it.

            “I need you to understand what that means,” Javert said. “What you’ve done to me.” His voice almost broke, turning into a bare hiss. “What have you done to me? I don’t even recognise myself.”

            “I’ve told you about Rabbi Myriel,” said Jean, matching Javert’s solemn tone. “You must remember the man yourself.” He did not wait for Javert’s response. “I felt unmade, then,” he said – “like I couldn’t possibly be the same person. I looked back on Jean Valjean and I was disgusted by him.”

            _“No,”_ Javert sighed. “You’re beautiful, you’re wonderful, you’re kind –”

            “Oh, sure, _Mr Madeleine_ can be, but what about Valjean?” came the retort. “24601, the prisoner you knew – was he beautiful, wonderful, and kind?”

            Finally, Javert opened his eyes. “But _that’s you,”_ he said, almost keening. “To know who you are is a gift, but to know it along with who you were is a _blessing,_ Jean. To know how you’ve changed –” Jean tried to duck his head, stuttering something bashful, but Javert held his head tighter between his palms, long fingers buried in soft white hair, and would not let him be embarrassed. “You’ve changed, Jean. You will always carry who you were, but you were always at the same time who you are now.” He frowned at himself. “Does that make sense?”

            Without speaking, Jean pulled away far enough to look Javert in the eye; then drew him suddenly close, wrapping his arms around Javert’s back and turning his head, his cheek flat against the front of Javert’s shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation, Javert returned the gesture, bending just a little to adjust for Jean’s height and resting his weary arms around Jean’s shoulders and waist.

            “You’ve changed, too,” Jean said, muffled slightly against Javert’s shirt. “All of that goes for you as much as me.”

            “It’s your fault,” Javert muttered over Jean’s shoulder, almost petulant.

            “Pride,” Jean sing-songed by his ear. “Don’t try to shift _all_ the blame from yourself.”

            Javert harrumphed, but did not reply, burying his nose in Jean’s collar and incapable of argument.

 

            Jean was reluctant to let Javert go, that night. He insisted three separate times that Javert was welcome to the spare room overnight, but Javert would have none of it, repeating each time that he had dishes to clean, and things to do, and his own damn bed to sleep in. Perhaps predictably, then, Javert was distracted from his dinner on Wednesday by the buzzer, which at nearly eight o’clock at night could only be one person. Jean had brought a book with him, and a bottle of red wine, which they sipped from plain mugs in the absence of any wine glasses in Javert’s flat, standing in the kitchen and rambling through a conversation about politics (which Javert tended to stay out of) and books (about which Jean was very enthusiastic) and work (for which Javert was remonstrated soundly).

            At nine o’clock, Jean took Javert’s spare key and went for a run, while Javert – having gone through his push-ups and squats before dinner – settled in front of his computer to finish writing his constables’ rosters for October. He shut down his computer around the same time as Jean stepped out of his shower, and cleared away the remains of his microwave meal dinner into a container for lunch the next day. He set the half-full dishwasher onto a rinse cycle, wiped down the benches, switched off the kitchen light, and turned to find Jean on his bed in boxers and a t-shirt, reading steadily, wiry glasses perched on his nose.

            “You’re staying?” Javert said, crossing the little room to the foot of the bed and plucking his pyjamas from the mattress. Jean looked up at him over the reading glasses.

            “Do you mind if I do?” he said, and Javert resisted smiling.

            “No.”

            There was still more than half a bottle of wine sitting on his kitchen counter, and Jean Valjean was in his bed, reading with a faint smile on his lips. Javert changed into his pyjamas, told Jean to turn on the lamp, and went to shut off the lights. In only the warm glow of the bedside lamp, Jean was small and heavily-shadowed, over one eye and one side of his hooked nose, over his crossed feet, over the elbow tucked in to his side between the turns of pages. Javert leaned over and kissed his temple, just above the arm of his glasses.

            “Ready to sleep?” he said.

            “I’m two pages from the end of the chapter,” Jean muttered absently. “And you’re in my light.”

            Javert snorted, and occupied himself in the few minutes until Jean was done by grabbing a duster from one of the kitchen cabinets and brusquely wiping it along the bookshelves and the top of the wardrobe and dresser. He would have to clean the bathroom over the weekend.

            “Done,” Jean said into the quiet, slipping a bookmark between the pages of his book and setting it, and his glasses, on the bedside table. He started shuffling closer to the wall, but Javert – shutting the duster back in its cupboard – stalked over and stopped him by planting one knee on either side of his legs and cupping Jean’s bristly jaw between his hands.

            “We’re not going to sleep just yet,” he whispered. “Unless you object?”

            Jean was smiling, face in shadow.

            “Not at all.”

            Laughter simmered in Javert’s chest as he rested his weight back in his hips and leaned forward, drawing Jean close and kissing him softly. He had been looking forward to kissing Jean from the moment he poured out the wine into Javert’s nondescript mugs, neither questioning nor mocking the lack of proper glasses. He had been looking forward to it since pointing out the spare key on its hook on the side of the fridge, and since Jean told him he was “just going to have a quick shower,” as if that were the most ordinary thing for them to exchange.

            He opened his mouth over Jean’s, and welcomed the odd sensation – hot, wet, and sour-sweet – of Jean’s lips and their inside edges, and his tongue just sweeping against Javert’s own. Jean’s hands were smoothing over Javert’s knees and the outer edges of his thighs, and Javert broke the kiss long enough to shuffle closer, letting Jean lean back against the wall once more as Javert bent back in. If they kissed for too long, he would wake up with the skin around his mouth feeling raw from Jean’s beard, a fact Javert found to be simultaneously distasteful, and delightful in its banality. He liked Jean’s beard, he thought, as he brushed his tongue along Jean’s bottom lip and the edges of his teeth; it was full and bright, and dashingly mature, and it somehow suited his neatness and modesty far more than a clean-shaved jaw would have. A noise – halfway between a gasp and a groan – escaped Javert’s throat as Jean’s lips moved against his own, tilting and opening up a new angle as his tongue pressed against the corner of Javert’s mouth. In retaliation, Javert inched nearer still, and drew his arms close around the back of Jean’s neck and his shoulders. Jean’s breath was heavy against his cheek and mouth, and his hands on Javert’s knees were slowing in pace.

            Jean hummed. “We should stop.”

            “It’s not that late,” Javert murmured, and kissed him again.

            Jean laughed against his mouth. “That’s not the reason,” he said, hands tight above Javert’s knees.

            Rolling his eyes, Javert pecked him on the corner of the mouth and crossed his arms around Jean’s broad shoulders. “What’s the reason, then?” he said.

            Jean cleared his throat, and between Javert’s knees, his hips squirmed uncomfortably. Javert pulled back, narrowing his eyes.

            “What’s that mean,” he grumbled.

            Blowing out an awkward breath, Jean wriggled his hips back, taking his hands from where they’d been warming Javert’s legs and pushing himself up on the mattress. When he finally talked, it was not any answer Javert had been expecting.

            “You know you’re very attractive, Javert.”

            Javert snorted.

            “I doubt it,” he said. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

            “You _are,”_ Jean retorted. “That’s just the problem.”

            Javert harrumphed. “I still don’t see what that has to do with –”

            But Jean was still wriggling his hips uncomfortably, and in a sudden flash of comprehension, Javert understood. He glanced down at Jean’s lap, and sat back on his heels.

            “Oh.”

            Jean grimaced. “Yes.”

            _“Oh.”_

            Instinctively, Javert shuffled back, trying not to scramble too hastily.

            “Javert,” Jean started, “we never did talk about –”

            “Oh, God.”

            “– I think we really ought to discuss this now –”

            “No, Jean, I’d rather not, you see –”

            Jean sighed out, explosively, as inside Javert’s chest, his heart was starting to beat too fast. His hands fluttered around Jean’s shoulders, hesitating along the edges of Jean’s shirt, while Jean babbled something about wanting to avoid misunderstanding, and Javert felt the beginnings of panic behind his breastbone.

            “No –”

            “– it’s important, Javert, it’s important that you know –”

            “– Jean, you have to understand –”

            And then, all at once, it burst out of each of them –

            “I’m celibate –”

            _“I’m asexual.”_

            Javert blinked. Jean tilted his head just slightly to one side.

            “You’re – what?”

            Javert huffed at that. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what it means,” he muttered, “your daughter’s in the bloody queer collective –”

            “No, I know what it _means,”_ Jean argued, “I just – I didn’t know.”

            Javert sucked on his teeth, trying not to harrumph again. “Well now you do,” he snapped. “I thought for a bit, after I’d met you – well, after I’d met you _again,_ here, that I wasn’t, but it was just romantic, and – anyway, what did you mean, you’re celibate?”

            Jean shrugged, worming away from Javert’s scrutiny. “I’m just… celibate,” he said. “It happened more or less accidentally, I guess, between prison and trying to hide who I was and raising Cosette, but it’s just – a thing I have. It’s about self-control. Modesty, maybe. It’s no big deal, I just prefer not to… well. To – to have sex. With anyone.”

            The breath stuck in Javert’s chest finally rushed out of him, easing his heart.

            “Thank _God,”_ he sighed. “I was hoping – well, nothing happened, I guess I was hoping it never would, now I suppose –” He wrinkled his nose all of a sudden. “You think I’m _attractive?”_

            Jean let out a great, gasping laugh, as if he, too, had been holding his breath. _“Very,”_ he spluttered, with his fingers back on top of Javert’s thighs. “Yes, very attractive. And you…?”

            Javert chuckled, hands falling to rest on Jean’s shoulders at last. He watched where his dark fingers overlapped Jean’s lighter brown skin and the dun of his t-shirt.

            “I think you’re very, very handsome,” he said, throat tight and voice quiet with embarrassed relief. “I like your face. I like your arms.” Jean laughed, ducking his head, and slid his hands up to rest over Javert’s hips again. “I have no interest in sleeping with you, though. I mean, beyond, obviously, literally…”

            “Yes, I understand,” Jean smiled, brilliantly. He tugged on Javert’s hips, and Javert obliged, sliding closer on his knees and kissing Jean again, long and light. “We should still stop though,” Jean mumbled against his mouth. “Same problem.”

            “Let me get this straight,” said Javert, not pulling away but not kissing Jean further, either. “You don’t want to have sex. But you do want to stop kissing because…?”

            Jean shrugged. _“I_ don’t want to have sex,” he said. “Doesn’t stop my body thinking it’s a good idea. I’m fifty-five, not incapacitated. It’s just uncomfortable, sometimes. I’m sure you – _do_ you – understand?”

            Javert narrowed his eyes. “I think so,” he said, slowly. “I mean, I have a libido, but it sounds easier to ignore than yours.”

            Jean chuckled at that. He lifted one palm from Javert’s hips and pressed it to his jaw instead, brushing against his neatly-trimmed whiskers and his end-of-day stubble. He kissed Javert’s cheek, and then his mouth, perfunctorily.

            “Yeah,” he sighed, “we need to stop. Sorry.”

            Shrugging, Javert said, “You don’t need to apologise,” and lifted himself up on his knees, swinging one leg over and clambering around until he was lying under the covers between Jean and the wall. Jean shuffled down to lie beside him.

            “You don’t mind?” he said, gingerly picking Javert’s hand out from under his shirt to rest on top of the cloth over his ribs. “I suppose – I mean, I never thought I’d be in _any_ relationship, but I always worried – if it _did_ happen – that it would be some kind of deal-breaker.”

            Javert snorted, slipping one foot over Jean’s ankle and kissing his cheek.

            “If you’d wanted to have sex with me,” he said, _“that_ would have come closer to being a deal-breaker than this. I can’t think of a more appropriate arrangement. Turn off the light, would you?”

            In the dim glow, Jean was definitely smiling. He leaned away from Javert long enough to switch off the bedside lamp, then rolled in closer, squeezed into the narrow bed. He kissed Javert somewhere around his cheekbone – it was too dark to aim properly – and burrowed in under Javert’s chin. Javert’s breath seemed to still in his lungs; in return, he tucked his arm closer around Jean’s waist, leaving his free hand squashed amidst the tangle of chests and wrists between them. He very definitely didn’t think about Jean’s groin, but it was soon easy to forget everything beyond the warmth of Jean’s slow breath against his collarbone, and his fingers curled up against his belly.

 

            Javert woke up with Jean lying almost on top of him, snoring, with their legs in a tangle and Jean’s hair in his mouth. He couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered by any of it.

  

* * *

 

 

            “Morning, sir,” Dubois called as he passed her desk on Saturday morning, “have you seen this?”

            Javert, rolling his eyes, curved back in his trajectory towards his desk, coffee in hand and a scowl ready on his face. He walked around the long desks to Dubois’ seat, where she was with one hand reading her instructions for her morning patrol, and with the other holding out her phone, screen-up, to Javert. He plucked it out of her fingers and quickly scanned the news article which was facing him; all of a sudden, his scowl fell away, and he very nearly dropped his coffee.

 

_Michael Hills dismissed, called to trial for 2007 murder_

_Ex-Senior Sergeant Michael Hills, from the Queensland Police Force, was dismissed from his position yesterday after a long public campaign led by New South Wales and Queensland justice groups and police officers._

_The groups called for Hills to be held accountable for the death of an Aboriginal man in custody in April 2007._

_Mr Hills was previously found not guilty of all charges. In July of this year he was again suspended, for reckless behaviour and an unauthorised car chase, sparking the campaign to hold him accountable for unlawful and dangerous behaviour._

_As a culmination of this campaign, a petition was made public last week urging Queensland Police officials to dismiss Mr Hills from the force and organise a retrial of the eight-year-old death. Copies of the petition were sent to the New South Wales and Queensland Police Commissioners, as well as to both state governments and the federal government in Canberra._

_At the head of over twenty thousand signatures was the name of Inspector John Javert, himself well known within the New South Wales Police Force as the only police officer of Aboriginal descent to have been promoted beyond the rank of sergeant. He is also infamous for his harsh and decisive policies of law enforcement._

_Inspector Javert held a press conference in Parramatta earlier this week after the release of the petition, defending the campaign and urging that Mr Hills be dismissed and tried for his actions, and that racism be removed from within the police force and the legal system._

_“Knowing that a man like Senior Sergeant Hills is considered my colleague does not inspire me with pride or admiration, but with disgust,” said Javert._

_“If police officers around Australia are employed to uphold the law, there is no place for officers who break it.”_

_Mr Hills is expected to face court in November._

 

            Javert remained very quiet as he finished reading the article. He cleared his throat. Then he handed the phone back to a slyly grinning Dubois, and adjusted his grip on his coffee cup.

            “I booked a table at the Newtown Hotel tonight,” said Dubois. “You, me, Gerard, I’ve got some friends coming from Marrickville and Redfern, I’m drumming up as many people as we can get, we are _celebrating.”_

            “We are doing nothing of the sort,” Javert snapped, but she was unbowed.

            “Gerard’s got patrols until seven, but after that, we are going _straight_ to the pub, trust me, you deserve it.”

            “I _deserve –”_

            “Oh, and I bought you this –” Dubois ducked under the desk and pulled out a brown paper bag, from which she drew a square-ish bottle of amber liquid with a dark label. She held out the bottle to Javert, who merely stared. “Whiskey,” she explained. “You are coming to the pub with us tonight, and you are going to _enjoy_ it.”

            Javert arched a look down at her.

            “Am I?”

            Dubois only grinned again.

            _“Yep.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I despise how online news articles are formatted (STOP IT WITH THE LINE BREAKS), but hey, life is disappointing, etc.
> 
> Most of Javert's morning neuroses are based on my own, sometimes slightly exaggerated. There's a strong chance that both of us have undiagnosed OCD tendencies, but I wouldn't know for sure.


	6. Chapter 6

            _“Jean!”_

            Jean flinched away from the phone and squinted through the dark at the screen, then held it back to his ear rather more gingerly than he had at first.

            “… Javert?”

            The inspector’s voice was tinny, and garbled by more than just the connection.

            _“Inspector_ Javert,” he slurred over the low hum of traffic, “but – I know you’re not keen on that. Jean?”

            “Javert, it—” He checked his phone screen again. “It’s two in the morning, what are you doing?”

            “Dubois,” Javert let out a low burp – “Dubois said we should go for drinks. Celebration drinks! Say hello, Dubois, Constable Dubois, this is –”

            Javert’s voice went distant, overridden by a young woman calling out a vaguely incomprehensible greeting.

            “Javert, why on earth are you phoning me?” Jean sighed. “Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but it’s _two AM,_ I was asleep –”

            “Oh _fuck,_ sorry,” Javert blurted out, “I was just – it’s way too late to bike home –”

            “Javert you are _not_ biking home drunk –”

            “I _know!”_ Javert cried, with the delight of agreement. “So I thought – well, Dubois thought – Dubois thought, since you live so close – we’re in Newtown still, and since you live so _close_ –”

            Jean sighed into his pillow.

            “She thought you could stay with me for the night?”

            _“Yes!_ How did you know? What am I saying, you’re smart, ’s why I love you…”

            Jean could practically hear Javert grinning, the broad, toothy smile he only gave when too distracted to be self-conscious about it. He smiled too, at the babbling mess of Javert’s speech as he started off on a wandering list of Jean’s virtues. It took a few tries to get his attention.

            “Javert – _Javert –_ yes, Javert, you’ve made it perfectly clear how much you like my bicep— _Javert, please –_ where are you?”

            There was a scraping sound, as of fine shoes coming to an abrupt halt on the footpath.

            “Um – Dubois, where are we –”

            In the background, Jean heard the young constable’s response, a little blurry but hardly as slurred as Javert’s speech.

            “Uh – just past the Dendy’s, sir, we’re – a few blocks away I think?”

            “Yep, Mary Street, Elizabeth Street –” Javert’s voice came suddenly back into focus. “Jean, can I stay with you tonight?”

            Jean – despite his half-shut eyes and weary limbs – muffled a laugh with the pillow.

            “Yes, Javert,” he sighed at the phone. “Of course you can. Come around the front and I’ll meet you at the door.”

            “Oh, brilliant, thank fuck,” Javert babbled, “d’you hear that Dubois? He’s gonna put me up for the night, _told_ you there was a reason I liked him –”

            “Hang up the phone, sir,” Dubois was chuckling in the background, “we’ll be there in five minutes –”

            “Right, yes – Jean? I have to hang up now.”

            Jean smiled and hummed. “I know.”

            “Okay, well I’ll see you soon?”

            “Very soon, Javert.”

            “Very soon. Right.”

            Jean smiled a little wider.

            “You can hang up now, Javert.”

            There was an infinitesimal pause.

            “Right.”

            “I love you,” Jean mumbled. “And I’ll see you soon.”

            There was another pause, then a rustling racket, then a beeping as Javert hung up without another word.

 

            Six minutes later, Jean was leaning on the café counter with a chair, a jug of water, and a glass at the ready, while a rather bedraggled-looking inspector was led up to the door by a similarly well-wrung constable. Jean opened the door for them, and was immediately assaulted by Javert’s lop-sided grin and more than a whiff of alcohol.

_“Jean.”_

            “Oh – my _goodness,_ Javert,” he choked out as Javert deposited himself into his arms along with the overpowering smell, “what have you been _drinking?”_

            Javert did not raise his arms from around Jean’s back or his cheek from his shoulder to respond.

            “Ask Dubois,” he mumbled, “she bought it for me, I didn’t realise it’d be this… _dizzy…”_

            The constable – a young, bright-eyed Vietnamese woman whose own step was only marginally less stumbling than Javert’s – grinned almost sheepishly.

            “Whiskey,” she said. “It was a congratulations present for the Hills thing, he drank about half the bottle. I don’t think he realised it’d, uh – work this fast.”

            With a little heave, Jean lifted Javert far enough off the ground to carry him across to the chair he’d pulled down, lowering him to the seat despite the long, dark fingers which plucked at his t-shirt in protest.

_“Water,_ Javert,” he said sternly, pouring out a glass from the jug on the table and depositing it in Javert’s hands. Javert mumbled something about being very thirsty, actually, now that Jean mentioned it, and set to draining the glass.

            “Sorry about this, Mr Fauchelevent,” Dubois grimaced from by the door. “Kinda didn’t realise how badly he’d handle alcohol, I don’t think he drinks much.”

            “No,” Jean answered, wry but smiling, “he doesn’t. Still, Sergeant Hills’ dismissal is certainly as good a reason as any to warrant the indulgence.”

            “It’s not _indulgence,”_ Javert drawled, as he poured out another glass of water, “I don’t _indulge._ It was _Dubois’s_ suggestion, a well-earned _celebration_ of a hard-earned victory, and you know, I haven’t heard from the commissioner yet, I could still be fired over this –”

_“Hush_ now, Javert,” Jean soothed, reaching out to smooth the frizzing hair back from Javert’s face and behind his ears from where it had escaped out of its usual neat bun. “Enjolras is right, firing you now would be obvious discrimination. The commissioner wouldn’t dare.”

            Javert shut his eyes and leaned his head against Jean’s hip, the glass dangling half-empty in his hand. “Still could happen,” he mumbled. “I’m very dizzy…”

            “Drink the water, sir,” Dubois said, holding back a smile. “He’s not rostered on for tomorrow,” she added to Jean, “don’t worry. Just let him sleep it off.”

            “I intended to.” Jean angled a fond, long-suffering look down at the top of Javert’s head, where his hand still lingered. Javert sipped at the water, heedless. “Thank you, Constable Dubois,” Jean went on, looking up at her – “for looking after him like this.”

            Dubois snorted. “It’s my fault anyway,” she said, “I bought him the whiskey. I know he’ll be looked after here; plenty of good coffee for the hangover when he wakes up.”

            Jean laughed softly at that. “And yourself?” he asked. “How are you getting home?”

            Dubois shrugged widely. “Oh, fine,” she said, nodding at Javert, “I’m not as bad off as him. I’ll take a cab home, I only live in Marrickville, it’s not far.”

            “Are you sure?” Jean frowned. “I could pay for the cab charge if you like, as thanks for bringing him here –”

            “No, please,” said Dubois, raising her hands as if in surrender, “I don’t need to give him any more fuel for his rants about your over-generosity. I can afford it, it’s no bother.”

            “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you before you go?”

            Dubois watched him for a moment with an odd, open-mouthed expression, as if something was clicking into place in her mind. She laughed just once.

            “Glass of water would be nice,” she shrugged. “I can see why he’s confused by you.”

            “I’m not _confused,”_ Javert mumbled into Jean’s belly. “I’m _concerned.”_

            “All due respect, sir,” Dubois angled down at him, “but I think it’s time for you to shut up and go to sleep.”

            “That was _not_ all due respect, Constable,” Javert squinted up at her, but there was nothing menacing in his attitude, even had he not been too drunk to quite stand on his own: he peered at her as if sizing her up, and judging her all the better for what he found.

            “Here,” Jean said, pushing Javert upright off his hip and lifting the corner of one of the tea towels over the coffee machines, extracting a latte glass. He hefted the jug from the table and refilled Javert’s glass, then the one in his hand, holding it out to a grateful Dubois who knocked it swiftly and steadily back. Javert seemed to be following suit.

            “Thanks, sir,” Dubois sighed as she finished, handing back the glass.

            “Please,” Jean smiled, “call me Jean. He’s the superior officer here, not me.”

            “Damn right,” Javert said into his glass as he tipped it back. Dubois snorted at him.

            “I should be heading off,” she said. “Make sure he doesn’t come into work tomorrow.”

            “I’ll try my hardest, Constable,” said Jean with a wry half-smile as he followed her to the door. Javert muttered something that sounded like “G’night Dubois,” into his glass, swaying alarmingly, and a moment later, the blinds clattered behind the constable as she disappeared in the direction of King Street. Jean turned back to Javert, who was squinting into his empty glass.

            “Come on, Javert,” he sighed, “let’s get you looked after.”

            The empty glass and jug were set down on the table, and, with very little effort, Jean leaned down and pulled Javert to his feet, making him stumble, but not fall. Shrugging off Jean’s hands, Javert, wobbled his own way out to the kitchen and up the stairs with Jean close behind in case he lost his precarious balance. At the top, Jean gently guided Javert to the left, and the guest room off the short corridor there.

            “Bathroom’s just across from here,” he said softly, as he peeled Javert’s greatcoat from his shoulders. He hung the coat on a hook behind the door, and watched as Javert shuffled away to the bathroom, mumbling his thanks. Jean breathed a soft sigh of relief as the smell of whiskey wafted away with him. “There’s a spare toothbrush in the cupboard!” he called just before the door shut.

            Jean turned back the sheets on the little double bed, and checked that the alarm clock was unplugged. He went downstairs and cleared away the jug and glass, returning the chairs to their top-down positions on the table. By the time he returned to the guest room, Javert was just coming out of the bathroom, already looking more tired than before. When he saw Jean, his habitual scowl softened into something resembling a smile.

            “God, I love you,” he said, rather hoarsely, as if he’d spent most of the night shouting to be heard in a crowded pub. Jean let out a bashful laugh at his slurring frankness.

            “The feeling’s mutual,” he said. “Now, take your shoes off, it’s time for bed.”

            “Good idea,” Javert said absently, as he dropped down onto the bed and leaned over to untie his boots. Jean disappeared for a moment to grab some spare pyjama bottoms from his own room, and when he returned, Javert was fiddling with the buttons on his plain, grey shirt, jeans in a puddle next to his haphazard boots.

            “I should, um,” he mumbled, chin to chest, “fold my things – um –”

            Jean was about to intervene out of pity when Javert finally managed the last button and shrugged out of his shirt. Jean held out the pyjamas to him, which Javert stared at for a moment before accepting, as if he were wondering where they’d appeared from. He changed into them with remarkably loose limbs.

            “You ready?” Jean asked, and Javert nodded, tugging at the elastic on his hair. Jean let out a sigh, and stepped forward to help him, reaching both hands around to the back of Javert’s head so he could ease away the elastic without causing further knots. From so close, he could smell that Javert had taken his implicit advice and brushed his teeth. The combination of whiskey and mint on his breath was odd, and slightly nauseous.

            Javert’s hands were on Jean’s hips without either of them quite knowing how they’d got there. Tilting forward, Javert buried his nose in the layers of pyjamas and dressing gown over Jean’s chest.

            With the hair elastic on the bedside table, Jean tilted Javert’s face up, and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

            “We both need to get some sleep, Javert,” he said under his breath, belatedly trying not to wake Cosette, though she usually slept like the dead, anyway, when she wasn’t kept awake by nightmares. One of Javert’s hands drew away to hang long fingers from Jean’s wrist.

            “Would you share with me?” he whispered. Sitting down, his head only came up to around Jean’s chest, and he looked up at him with a certain imploring innocence very different to the way he looked when he was sober. Jean wasn’t certain that he liked it.

            Jean kissed him again, longer this time, and said when he drew away: “If you prefer.”

            “I do prefer,” Javert mumbled, almost petulant. “I really do prefer. Would you kiss my mouth?”

            Holding his palm flat to Javert’s cheek raspy with stubble, Jean pressed his smile against Javert’s brow a third time, and stepped back. “No,” he said, untying his dressing gown and hanging it next to Javert’s coat behind the door. “With the alcohol fumes rolling off you, you might actually knock me out if I kissed you there.” He ignored Javert’s pouting disappointment and went to poke his head out the end of the corridor to check that all the lights were off. When he turned back, it was to find that Javert had scooted backwards, making space for Jean on the side of the bed closer to the door. He switched off the light.

            “Do you prefer the wall?” Jean asked, as he slid under the covers.

            “Not particularly,” said Javert, wrapping one arm around Jean’s waist and pressing his whiskey-and-mint mouth to Jean’s shoulder. “I just-s-sume you’re getting up before me.”

            Jean laughed almost silently, shuffling around to get comfortable until his back was to Javert’s chest. “That’s remarkable foresight for someone as drunk as you,” he said, and Javert bumped his forehead against the back of Jean’s neck in protest.

            “I’m _drunk,”_ he mumbled, “not totally incapacitated.”

            Jean laughed again, and twined his fingers around Javert’s hand over his waist.

            “Get some sleep, Javert,” he whispered. “We’ll look after you in the morning.”

 

            Just before six AM, Cosette knocked on the door to the guest room and cautiously stuck her head into the room, whispering to Jean that it was time for their run. With inimitable gracelessness, Jean swung his legs out from under the covers and lurched upright, leaving Javert to mumble something incomprehensible into the pillows and roll into the space Jean had left, splaying his limbs. Cosette raised her eyebrows almost to the edge of her hijab, but declined to comment.

            When Javert woke properly, it was to a dull ache in his skull and behind his eyes, accompanied by a stiffness in every limb and joint and the driest mouth he could remember having (aside from the time he was kidnapped by a gang he’d been helping to investigate, and tied up without food or water for nearly three days; but that had been _years_ ago).

            With tentative, shuffling movements, Javert pulled himself out of the spacious bed and across the narrow hall to the bathroom, frowning at the hazy memory of Jean Valjean’s broad back leant into his chest. Where _was_ Jean?

            Javert relieved himself, and washed his face, scratching at the faint stubble on his jaw and wondering if Jean would protest at someone else using his razor. He decided not to risk it, and combed back his hair with water and his own fingers so he could tie it up. As he stood in the little bathroom, he could hear the chatter and clatter of the café, drifting up the stairs from beyond the kitchen below. He felt tacky and smelly, like he’d sweated too much and not washed his hands in days. He needed a shower.

            Leaning over the sink, Javert frowned at his reflection and poked at the bruises under his eyes and his haggard-looking skin. He wondered where Jean had got to, and what time it was.

            “You can have a shower if you want.”

            Javert just about leapt out of his skin. He span around in place to see Cosette standing in the hallway just outside the bathroom, dressed in comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved shirt: house clothes, personal clothes, clothes in which he had never, ever expected to see her.  She shrugged under his alarmed gaze.

            “Dad won’t mind if you borrow his shampoo or razor or anything,” she went on, “just let him know what you use. Are you all right?”

            Javert squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, wanting to rub them but blinking them open instead, and slowly signed, _‘Thirsty. Where’s your…?’_

            Cosette smiled at him. “Dad’s downstairs. I’ll go get him for you.”

            Javert nodded his vague understanding, turned back to the sink, and tried to remember how to shave. After a moment, he turned on the tap, but only drank some water from his cupped hands.

            Jean’s footsteps were a little more obvious than Cosette’s, the arm around Javert’s back even more so.

            “How are you feeling?” Jean asked, very quietly. Javert groaned and leaned into his powerful chest, still hunched over the sink and wiping his chin. Jean winced. “You smell _awful.”_

            Javert signed a slurred apology, and hid his face closer to Jean’s chest.

            “Do you want some Panadol?” Jean asked, too kind for pity and too caring for amusement. Javert nodded, and Jean reached out an arm above him to open the cupboard over the sink and fumbled around for the slim, green-and-white box. He withdrew the arm around Javert’s back to pop out two pills and drop them into Javert’s palm; he’d dry-swallowed them and turned on the tap for more water before Jean could offer to get him a glass.

            Once Javert was more or less standing upright by himself again, Jean rubbed his back in small circles with his palm. “I’ll leave you to your shower,” he said, in a deliberately quiet voice, and kissed Javert’s temple before he left.

            Javert tried and failed to keep his shower short, his movements slow and sluggish. Afterwards, however, he felt noticeably better: his head still ached, and his body was still nagging him about hydration, but he was at least clean, and relatively refreshed. After shaving, brushing his teeth, and properly combing his hair, he looked in the mirror and almost recognised the person who looked back at him.

            When Javert marched across the hall, Jean was waiting in the guest room, with Javert’s jeans folded on the bed and a selection of his own shirts beside it.  None of them fit Javert – they were all too wide in the shoulders, and not quite long enough – and he was resigned to shrugging into a plain t-shirt of Jean’s, which sagged around his chest and arms like rags on a B-movie ghost.

            “I look ridiculous,” he muttered, and Jean smiled.

            “You look like you’re about to take a day off,” he said: an assertion which Javert noticed just too late to argue against.

            “It’s Sunday,” he said diplomatically, holding in the nagging doubt about the fact. “I normally do a load of washing and buy groceries for the week, and catch up on minor reports. And I have to clean my bathroom this week.”

            _“You,”_ Jean insisted, with his hands on Javert’s shoulders – “are taking – a day off.”

            “I don’t take _days off,”_ Javert bit out. In response, Jean leaned up on his toes and kissed Javert’s cheek.

            “You will today,” he said. “Constable Dubois’s orders.”

            “I outrank her,” Javert muttered, staring at his bare feet next to Jean’s neat shoes.

            “Ah, but I don’t,” Jean retorted, with a mischievous grin hidden in his eyes. He leaned up again, this time to kiss Javert’s mouth.

            “I’m guess I don’t smell as bad as before,” Javert mumbled. Jean’s reply was to slide his hands up to behind Javert’s neck and step closer, kissing him again. Without his intent, Javert’s arms rose to wind around Jean’s waist.

            “You smell a lot better,” Jean murmured against Javert’s mouth, and kissed him once more.

            Javert could not argue with that.

 

            Javert did, eventually, go over to his office; but it was only to pick up his bike, load the saddlebags with a pile of groceries (which Jean, absurdly, had tried to pay for), and ride them back to his own house, where he also set a load of washing going in the machine in the corner of the bathroom. This was, of course, after having spent three hours drinking a lot of water and filter coffee from the café, where he settled down with a mug, a glass, Jean, and a continuing attempt to ignore the way Robin Grantaire sat halfway across the room, alternating between sketching the room, highlighting some reading or other, and furiously tapping away on their phone.

 

* * *

 

_Facebook Messenger_

_leblanc’s cop boyfriend_

_October 4_

_Robin Grantaire, Imogen Combeferre, Jackson Courfeyrac,_ _Jiemba_ _Bahorel, Bossuet L’esgles, Samuel Feuilly, Musichetta Vaas, Cosette Fauchelevent_

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        yep he is DEFINITELY hungover wow

                        what the hell even happened to get INSPECTOR JAVERT drunk

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        hold on, i’ll be down in a minute

                        i think dad mentioned something about a celebration?? might have something to do with the petition going live and the dismissal thing?

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        I suppose that makes sense, yeah

                        apart from the “inspector javert got drunk” part

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        i have heard the phrase “i blame dubois” at least three times today

                        who is dubois

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        the mystery deepens

                        how spoopy

                        [music notes emoji]

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        Chetta, didn’t we agree on an emoji ban for the week?

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        FUCK THE POLICE

 

**Robin, Grantaire**

                        that seems to be the idea, yeah

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        GRANTAIRE, NO

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        it was too good an opportunity to miss, sry

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        that seems… the opposite of the idea?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ferre, ilu, but please don’t even try

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        I’m sorry R, who helped you come up with pun titles for your last four essays?

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        ………………………………..

                        point granted

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        thank you

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        hey R y’know that shirt he’s wearing belongs to dad, right

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        sjsjjdt

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        WHAT

                        W H A T ?????????????

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        omg R just nearly spilled their drink

                        CALM DOWN

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        I’M SITTING RIGHT NEXT 2 U AND NO I WILL NOT CALM DOWN

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        IF YOU DIDN’T WANT TO BREAK US COSETTE, WHY DID YOU /TELL US/ SOMETHING LIKE THAT

 

**Cosette Fauchelevent**

                        :)

 

**Samuel Feuilly**

                        I hope Marius knows how much of a cold-hearted Machiavel you can be, Cosette.

                        I mean, I love you, but wow…

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        how dare u, cosette is an ANGEL

 

**Imogen Combeferre**

                        also careful, if marius hears you typing like that he might come after you himself

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        omfg

                        i’m crying, he just walked into the shop

                        careful feuilly

                        he’s gonna look real sad if he finds out, it’ll hurt u deep in ur soul

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        much as i love cosettius, this chat is for a separate otp

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        on that note, RED ALERT, THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS

                        I REPEAT, THEY ARE /HOLDING HANDS ON THE TABLE/ just kill me now

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        ahh, that’s the stuff

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        (also red alert for eposettius bc ponine just came off shift)

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        R i s2g

 

**Robin Grantaire**

                        [SCEAMS] PLEBLANC TUCED COPBF’S HAIR BEFIND HIS EARR

 

**Musichetta Vaas**

                        I DIE

 

* * *

 

            Jean’s sighing was all too audible over the phone.

            “Javert,” he was saying, “come to bed.”

            “No.”

            “I’m not asking you to go all the way to your own flat, just come over here and we can share the spare room again.”

            “Jean, I am _working,”_ Javert insisted, one hand on the keyboard and one on a pen, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder and narrowing his eyes at the security footage on his computer as streams of people flitted at triple-time across the screen.

            “You always are,” Jean grumbled, “but you still need to sleep.”

            Javert scoffed. “If I _need_ to sleep, I’ll have a nap on the sofa,” he said. “Meanwhile, I have a bike thief to find, and if I don’t keep successfully closing cases, the commissioner is definitely going to use that as an excuse to fire me.”

            “Javert, it’s been weeks, if he was going to fire you, he would’ve done it by now. You can finish the case in the morning.”

            “Or, I can do it now.” Javert clicked his tongue. “Was there anything else?”

            Jean sighed again. “You know Cosette is doing another living-in trial with Marius next week,” he said. “She’s been looking at places to rent in the inner west, and I think she's going to propose to Marius.”

            Javert abruptly paused the footage in front of him.

            “Oh,” he said, rather flatly. “Oh. And you’re – feeling –”

            “A bit lonely, yes,” Jean said, almost too evenly. Javert made a low _‘eugh’_ noise in his throat.

            “Why didn’t you say so from the beginning?” he snapped.

            “I didn’t want you to feel pressured to come over –”

            “So instead of pressuring me with your emotions and well-being, you pressured me with my sleeping habits.” Javert rolled his eyes, and pulled the pad of paper at his elbow closer. “Let me finish this day’s footage, there’s only another hour of it left.”

            “Another _hour –”_

            “That means it’ll take me twenty minutes to watch it,” Javert shrugged, scribbling _‘camera 21 footage checked up to 0001 11/10/15’_ on the notepad. “I’ll be over in half an hour.”

            “Javert, quick question,” said Jean. “Do you actually _know_ what time it is?”

            Javert froze, and stared unseeing at the notes he was making.

            “No.”

            He knew Jean was smiling at him.

            “It’s just past midnight, Javert,” he said. “It could be ten AM for all you know, couldn’t it?”

            “No,” said Javert evenly. “The sun would be up if it were ten AM.”

            Jean laughed quietly at him over the phone. “You drive me absolutely to distraction, Javert.”

            “Sorry,” he said, automatically, only causing Jean to laugh again.

            “There’s nothing to apologise for.”

 

            At 12:28, Javert shut down his computer, locked his bike into his office, and descended the stairs, nodding at Jim the receptionist as he passed. There was a faint light visible through the kitchen window above Madeleine’s, and a figure waiting inside the darkened café with a smile he couldn’t see, but knew was there.

  

* * *

 

 

            _‘What are you drawing?’_ Marius signed as he sat down with his coffee next to Grantaire in Madeleine’s. Haphazardly trying to sign with one hand while still sketching, they replied:

            _‘Menorah for the chalkboard wall.’_ A streak of charcoal appeared on their forehead as they brushed hair out of their eyes. _‘Feuilly’s gotta be at home to light his actual one, but since I’m always fucking here anyway, I thought I could light the chalk one.’_

_‘That’s a really cute idea!’_ Marius signed back, shuffling closer in his seat. _‘But I think it’s called a –’_ He made a gesture Grantaire didn’t recognise, and they squinted at him, still hunched over their sketchpad.

            _‘Repeat that?’_

_‘Oh – no, that’s the Israeli one, um –’_

            _‘Spell it out,’_ Grantaire signed; then hastily added, _‘in_ English.’

            _‘But which spelling should I use –’_

_‘Marius, I swear to God –’_

_‘C-H-A-N-U-K-I-A-H,’_ Marius signed, quickly enough to avert Grantaire’s impatience. _‘Sometimes without the C. Because it’s Hebrew, not English.’_

            _‘Got it,’_ Grantaire signed. _‘Is there actually a sign for it that’s not “menorah”?’_

            Marius opened his mouth and raised his hands – then pointed both index fingers – then lowered his hands, shutting his mouth.

            _‘Not sure,’_ he signed. _‘I’ll ask Feuilly if he knows. Maybe we can just use the Israeli one…’_

            Grantaire snorted, and flipped a page in their sketchpad. _‘I was thinking,’_ they signed, stiltedly, trying to do it all with one hand while they drew; _‘we should organise a meal. That’s a Chanukah thing, right? Food?’_

_‘I think that’s a_ human _thing, R.’_

            Grantaire stuck out their tongue, then laughed around it. _‘Quiet, you,’_ they signed, _‘you’ve been hanging out with Combeferre too much. I preferred when you were mooning around after Courf’s example.’_

Marius screwed up his face. _‘Courf doesn’t_ moon –’

            _‘Anyway, we should organise a big meal thing, I was thinking,’_ Grantaire signed over him, _‘for Chanukah. I know Feuilly does those weekly things with his synagogue, but we could make this one huge. Use the café’s kitchen and find some good recipes for latkes and those awesome donut things Feuilly brought around last year, and we can make soup and roasts and casseroles or something. Could we do that?’_

_‘I mean, it’s a bit early to be thinking about Chanukah, but sure,’_ Marius shrugged. _‘Feuilly will probably be hanging out with people from his synagogue though, do you think we could find room for all of us_ and _them?’_

_‘It’s not for Feuilly,’_ Grantaire signed, eyes on the charcoal in their drawing hand. _‘I was thinking we could make it, like, a charity thing. Get in touch with some of the homeless shelters, people who can afford it can give donations, maybe even do a dual Chanukah-Christmas thing, how close are they this year? Make a whole night out of it. Potatoes and oil for everyone, then as much fruit and brandy as you can stuff into a single cake.’_

            A broad grin was starting to spread across Marius’ face.

            _‘R,’_ they signed, alarmingly sly, _‘you’ve been hanging out with Enjolras too much.’_

            Grantaire smacked him lightly on the arm. _‘Shut your entire face,’_ they signed. _‘This isn’t about him.’_

            _‘It is a bit, though, isn’t it?’_

            ‘No,’ Grantaire flicked out, sharp and definite. _‘I just thought it might be a cool idea.’_

            Marius eyebrows rose. _‘When I first met you, you would’ve said there was no point wasting money and energy on a single meal or donations that wouldn’t make any difference to the day-to-day lives and institutional –’_

            _‘Yes all right, all right,_ all right,’Grantaire flapped. _‘Believe it or not, kid, people can change their minds about things.’_

            _‘I’m only two years younger than you, R.’_

_‘That’s practically decades at our age.’_

            Marius scoffed at them.

            _‘I think it’s a fantastic idea,’_ they signed. _‘Will you get Feuilly on board?’_

            _‘Only if he won’t be too busy with his own Chanukah stuff,’_ Grantaire shrugged.

            _‘Courf’s parents are big on Christmas,’_ Marius suggested, _‘you could probably get them involved.’_

            Scribbling a note in the corner of the page, Grantaire signed, _‘You’re a tiny genius, you know that?’_

            _‘What about E?’_

            Grantaire sent him a long, flat look. _‘I take it back.’_

            _‘That’s not an answer.’_

‘Maybe.’

            Marius grinned. _‘He’ll find out about it eventually.’_

            _‘Literally shut the fuck up,’_ Grantaire signed, small and short, as they hunched back over their sketchpad. _‘I’m trying not to think about it.’_

  

* * *

 

 

             Javert was walking down King Street reviewing midday patrol routes when he heard the shout.

            _“Hey! Get back here you thieving little shit –”_

            The shout had come from behind him. The thief could not have been a very smart one, for even as he turned, Javert could see, sprinting and squeezing through the crowd towards him, a figure in an unseasonably warm hoodie and jeans, with a very suspicious bulge under its arm. It only took two steps and an outstretched hand for Javert to meet the figure halfway and grip it by the collar, stopping the thief in their tracks.

            _“All right,”_ Javert growled, as the figure twisted in his grip, trying to flee. “Give it up, you’ve been caught. What’ve you got there?”

            In their thrashing, the thief’s hood was knocked back, and a young – terribly young – face looked up at him, twisting with grief and ire. They said nothing, but Javert could clearly see the thick oval of a loaf of bread under their arm, and the yellow edge of a crumpled fifty-dollar note in their right hand.

            “I somehow doubt that all belongs to you,” he drawled. The thief hissed through their teeth, but slowly stopped fighting. When Javert looked up, he could see heads poking out from the open front of a bakery just up the street, and with a heavy tug, he pulled the thief in his hands back towards the building, ignoring the kid’s outraged grunts. When he reached the bakery, he stepped up into the shop, dragging the thief with him, and was met with three faces, alternately angry and relieved.

            “There he is,” growled what looked like a customer, in a button-up and jeans, while a young woman made her way out from behind the counter.

            “Thank you, officer,” she said, lowering the hinged counter on her way out into the shop, “I was about to call for help.” She had a distinct accent – Chinese, if Javert were to hazard a guess – and was practically wringing her hands.

            “What happened here?” Javert asked the store at large. The customer who had spoken up when Javert entered crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.

            “This lady here,” he said, nodding at another customer across the shop, “was buying a loaf of bread when this piece of shit –” with a nod at the kid in Javert’s hand – “just ran up, grabbed the money from her hand and the bread from the counter, and ran off with it. Fucking thievery, never thought I’d see the day.”

            “Is this true?” Javert said to the bakery worker, who nodded, but said nothing. He turned to the customer ostensibly stolen from, and asked, “How much money was taken?”

            “Fifty dollars,” she said, stern, if a little shaken. “I was trying to break a note.”

            Javert nodded, and looked down at the kid in his hands, sullen and hunched over, facing away from the rest of the shop but not looking into the street.

            “Well?” he said. “Is it true? Keep in mind what you still have on you.”

            The thief glared up at him for a fraction of a second, then glanced away again, looking down.

            “Yes,” they murmured to the floor. Javert let a slow breath out through his nose

            “Give me the money,” he said, trying to keep his voice low, and holding out his hand in front of the kid. Without looking up, they unfurled their fist, and dropped the crumpled note into Javert’s palm. The plastic popped open, unfolding itself from the ball of the thief’s fist, and Javert held it out between his fingers to the customer, who took it and smoothed it out against her shirt. Then Javert looked down at the thief again, and the loaf of bread under their arm, leaving flour stains on their hoodie. He cleared his throat.

            “Why did you take the bread?” he asked, low and calm. It would not do to cause a scene, or spook the kid when they could still give him answers. It struck him that, although his instinct was still shouting at him about handcuffs and criminals and obvious cases, his hands were not shaking, and it was not hard to keep his voice down.

            The thief said nothing.

            “You have to answer me,” said Javert, very direct, “I’m a police officer. Why did you take the bread and the money?”

            The thief twitched in his hand, arm tight around the loaf of bread, and muttered: “I was hungry.”

            The man who had talked first scoffed, and started saying something about lying, but Javert silenced him with a glare. He looked back down at the thief.

            “And you couldn’t buy the bread honestly?” he asked. The kid snorted a mirthless laugh.

            “Of course fucking not.”

            Javert sighed through his nose once more. He looked up at the bakery worker.

            “How much?” he said. “How much for that loaf?”

            She glanced between each of her customers and Javert, mouth open. “Five dollars.”

            Huffing his frustration at himself, Javert swapped hands on the thief and pulled his wallet from his pocket, repeating in his mind, _Exceptions are not a weakness. Exceptions are lawful. Exceptions are kind. Exceptions are not a weakness. Exceptions are lawful…_ He drew a five-dollar note from his wallet, and handed it over the head of the thief to the young woman.

            “I’ll need to take everyone’s name and contact details,” he said, looking at each person in the room in turn, “in case you’re needed for further statements or to be called on as witnesses in court or any further investigations.”

            “Oh – I have a card…” said the customer with the money, fumbling in the bag slung over her shoulder.

            “If it has your name, address, and a phone number or email address through which we can contact you, it will do.” Javert turned to the other customer as he fished a notebook and pen from one of his belt pockets. “And you?”

            “Uh – James Madison…” the man began, but Javert cut him off.

            “One moment.” He looked down at the thief. “I need two hands for this,” he said. “I can either handcuff you to the security door, or I can trust you to stand here in the shop and not run. Which will it be?”

            The thief stared at him, askance. They did not answer for a long moment, until:

            “I won’t run,” they muttered. Javert nodded.

            “Good,” he said, and gestured with his chin at the centre of the counter at the back of the shop. “Stand over there, please. Now, James Madison…”

            He took down name, address, phone number, and email for the customer and the bakery worker, adding her precise position in the bakery (“Casual sales assistant”), then slipped the first customer’s business card into his notebook after checking it over for the right details. He took three contact cards from his belt and handed them out, telling the customers and worker that they should feel free to contact him at any time if they had any questions regarding the theft or proceedings.

            “Is there anything else?” he said to the room at large.

            “Are you going to _arrest_ him or not?” said the customer with the fifty-dollar note still in her hand. Javert turned to her.

            “Your money has been returned, and the price of the bread has been reimbursed,” he said. “I’ll be taking the culprit in for questioning; beyond that, the matter does not concern you unless you are needed to testify in court, in which case you will be contacted directly and in advance of proceedings. Thank you for your time and cooperation. Anything else?”

            Again, he asked the room at large, but this time, no one answered except to shrug or murmur a negative.

            “Thank you for your time and cooperation,” he repeated; then he looked back to the thief – who had stood quiet and trembling faintly all the while – and held out his arm in a beckoning gesture. “Come on,” he said. To his surprise, after only a moment’s hesitation, the kid stepped forward, and barely flinched when Javert put his hand back on their shoulder. They left the shop, and Javert steered them both down the street half a block, as he reached for the radio on his shoulder.

            “Inspector Javert,” he said, “requesting a car near the corner of Church and King Streets to drive a culprit to the station for questioning. Over.”

            A moment later, there came a crackling reply. “Constable Al-Khous with Constable Esselle to Inspector Javert, we’re on Brown Street, be there in a few minutes. Over.”

            “Thank you, Constables,” Javert replied, “there’s no rush. Over and out.” He looked down at the thief in his hand. “You can eat the bread now, if you like,” he said. “It’s been paid for, and you said you were hungry.”

            After a long moment of stillness, as the crowd bustled past them and across Church Street in streams and starts – jaywalkers Javert had been taught to ignore – the kid tore the end off the loaf in two great tugs, and bit off chunk after oversized chunk, chewing remorselessly. Javert stopped himself from smiling; Jean was rubbing off on him.

            “I’m taking you in for questioning,” he explained. “I’ll need to record your details and report the incident, but as things look to be standing now, you probably won’t be charged, and this won’t contribute to a criminal record unless it comes out that you’ve got a history of theft. Is that clear?”

            The kid nodded through a mouthful of bread, and Javert nodded back, once, firmly, a dismissal of the point. Anything else could wait until the official questioning.

            After a few more minutes of silence and chewing, a police car double-parked two cars away from them. With a little tug, Javert pulled the thief along with him, opening the back door of the car and holding it open for the kid, then sliding in after them and snapping the door shut. He gave a muttered reminder of “Seatbelt,” to them as he clicked his own into place; then Constable Esselle pushed off the handbrake and drove away.

            “All good, sir?” said Constable Al-Khous from the seat in front of Javert, where he could see both constables glancing in the rear-view mirror for a better look at Javert’s prey.

            “Attempted petty theft,” Javert shrugged, taking out his notebook and jotting down the address of the bakery and the names of the constables in the front seats. “Just taking them in for questioning.”

            His fingers twitched, and he ignored them.

 

            Back at the station, Javert took down the thief’s details and recorded them (they had no prior criminal record or offenses). Seventeen years old, with four younger siblings and a single parent; Javert felt an uneasy twinge in his gut. He gave the kid the details of half a dozen separate shelters, soup kitchens, and charitable agencies, but could not be sure that any of them would be followed up. The file ended with _Released without charge_ , and Javert had to hold his hands in fists for a solid minute after escorting the kid back out of the station and returning to his office.

            The realisation had come to him slowly, creeping up on him throughout the proceedings in the bakery and the car and the interview room, and finally clicking into place in his office afterwards. This minor was little younger than Jean Valjean had been at the time of his first arrest for the same offence – theft of bread – and here Javert sat with another Valjean on his hands, having let the kid go. He could not tell if he had done the right thing. He had done the _merciful_ thing, yes; but every instinct in him screamed about reoffenders, weakness, encouraging crime, and all manner of judgements which thirty years in the force had installed in him, and barely six months had begun to leech out of him. It was not his place to condemn Jean Valjean for theft and parole-breaking, even if they were criminal offenses, when, as a person, he had done good deeds, with good intentions, and never harmed a soul. It was therefore not his place to condemn this seventeen-year-old who had tried and failed to steal petty cash and a single loaf of bread, despite that these were criminal offenses, when it was provable that such acts had been done out of desperation alone.

            (Javert tried not to think about what that might mean for other desperate offenses: the person who attacked out of fear, or conspired to terrorise and embezzle out of want for money, or murdered children and lovers and family and friends and total strangers out of mere desperation, out of hunger or illness or self-defence in advance, or the ones who stole as a career, or had families to support, should they all go free, then, should Javert simply throw up his hands and let them all do as they please, if the law was so fallible, what good could it do, what good could he do –)

            His chest felt tight. Javert leaned over his desk and tried to breathe.

_The law is not infallible,_ he said to himself. _My job is to uphold it where I can, and amend it where I cannot. I am not infallible, but I will aim to be just._

_The law is not infallible._

            His breathing was not coming any slower.

            With trembling fingers – trying to swallow, and only making himself cough between quick, searing breaths – Javert knocked his work phone off its hook and jerked the body closer, jabbing at the numbers with inefficient speed. He held the phone to his ear with one hand and listened to it ring, while with the other hand he held his head in his palm and felt his fingers twitch and drag through his hair, scratching and fighting.

            “Hullo, this is Jean Fauchelevent?”

            Javert’s throat hurt.

            “Jean, I’m having a panic attack,” he snapped into the phone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know who else to call – I’m at work, I can’t think properly, I let someone go for theft only I paid for the bread and the other person got their money back but I can’t think, I can’t –” He was gasping for breath, and _oh, God,_ he had come so close to drowning himself once and it would have felt like this, surely it would have felt like this – “I can’t think, Jean, I can’t work, I can’t – I can’t do it – I can’t do it –”

            The phone was making hushing noises in his ear, and when he stopped for another few grating breaths, Javert heard Jean take his chance.

            “Javert, listen to my voice.”

            It was very low, very calm; quiet enough not to hurt, but loud enough to be clear and close.

            “I know that you can get through this,” Jean was saying. “It’s anxiety, nothing more and nothing less. You’ve done this before.”

            Javert was nodding, not thinking about how Jean couldn’t see it. His throat felt too tight, and he felt his free hand scrabble at his collar and tie while the other clutched at the phone.

            “What’s the first thing to do?” Jean asked him, and Javert wanted to scream at that – at the idea of asking him a question when all he could do was fail to breathe while his lips and teeth kept forming senseless words – but Jean asked him again, “Javert, what’s the first thing to do?”

_“Breathing,”_ he gasped. “Control breathing. Jean, I –”

            “Try breathing out a little longer than you’re breathing in,” Jean said, overriding him. “I know you can do it, just give it a go. Come on.”

            There was sense in what he was saying, Javert knew. _Breathe. Breathe,_ he thought, and forced each outward breath through his mouth as if he were pressing on a pair of bellows. Jean hushed, and spoke nonsense, on the other end of the phone, while Javert breathed – lost count – lost control – regained it – lost it again –

            “I can’t breathe –” he choked out, covering his eyes with his hand, “I can’t do it – _Jean –”_

            “Yes, you can,” Jean said, almost convincingly. “Keep breathing, Javert, slow it down, you know you can do it.”

            Javert’s breath came in – in again – in – until it stuck there, high and tight, and Javert wanted to sob but could not, wanted to shout but could not, wanted to _breathe_ but _could not_ –

            “Javert, I’m right here,” Jean was saying. “I’m here for you. You can do it.”

            His breath spluttered and shook out of him in one harsh sigh, barely emptying his lungs before filling them again. But Javert kept his grip on his temples and the phone, and with a supreme effort that seemed to seize up his whole back and chest, his belly and shoulders, he forced the outward breath to come slower and neater, a steady, longer breath before the gasp inwards –

            “That’s it Javert, you can do it.”

            He did it again, pressing the breath out of him longer and longer with each gasp as Jean murmured and soothed in his ear.

            “You’re doing well, Javert, very well…”

            After a while – it felt like an age, to Javert, even though he knew it was probably more like a few minutes – his breathing began to slow on its own, regulating itself, steadying itself without Javert needing to force it. He could feel the sting of salt in his eyes, and trails of dampness on his cheeks, but the tightness in his throat had lessened somewhat, and his chest no longer feel quite so small.

            “Very good, Javert,” Jean sighed in his ear. “Very good. How do you feel?”

            Javert choked out something like a sudden laugh, but managed to croak out: “Calmer.” He took a breath, and kept it steady. “Not calm, but calmer. _Fuck.”_

            “Can you tell me one thing you can see, Javert?”

            “My eyes are closed,” he replied, immediately catching onto the game and gladly letting Jean take it over.

            “Tell me one thing you can smell, then,” Jean said, predictably.

            “Sweat,” Javert snapped out in an instant. “From my hand.”

            “How about one thing you can hear? Something other than me?”

            “Uhm –” Javert’s voice was shaking, as he strained to hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. “There’s tapping in the gutters – is it raining?”

            “Just started a few minutes ago,” Jean said, and Javert could hear the smile. “What can you taste?”

            “Bile,” Javert forced out. “Um –” he swallowed – “nothing else, but I still smell like bread from the bakery and that kid eating in the interview room, it feels like I can almost taste that –”

            He cut himself off with the remnants of a sob. Jean shushed gently in his ear.

            “Very good. What can you feel?”

            “Wh’ can I feel?” Javert repeated.

            “Let’s start with your feet. What can you feel in your feet?”

            Javert’s hand tightened again on the phone.

            “Uh – my feet –” He tried to concentrate. “They’re on carpet,” he said, then amended it – “no, I know that, I can’t feel it – my boots are warm,” he said instead. “Um – they’re laced tight around my toes and the arches of my feet and my heels, but they’re not so tight around my ankles –”

            Nothing else came out. After a moment, Jean said, “That’s very good,” and Javert pulled in a long breath, making sure to push it out again with care. “What can you feel on your legs?” Jean asked.

            “There’s one of the chair legs against my ankle,” Javert said. “It’s not too hard. My knees feel – tight. The chair under my legs is soft enough, but I need to get it restuffed or replaced, the cushion’s overused.”

            “What can you feel in your back?” Jean asked, and dutifully, Javert answered.

            “The back of the chair,” he said. “The cold from the window. Is it cold?”

            “Yes, it got cold when the rain started,” said Jean. “There’s a bit of a southerly coming with it, the café downstairs was full of some very wet and shivery commuters when I left.”

            “You left the café for me?”

            Jean huffed a soft laugh. “I wasn’t exactly going to help you from there,” he said. “I’m in my room.”

            “What can _you_ see?” Javert asked. “Since I can’t open my eyes right now.”

            To Javert’s relief, Jean didn’t press that matter.

            “Well, I’m sitting on my bed,” he said, “so I can see the desk on one side of me, it’s covered in orders I have to fill and bills to pay in the next few days. There’s the pull-up bar over the door, but I closed that, so I can’t see out into the hall. Next to that is the dresser, and the bookshelf, I should probably keep that neater than I do.”

            “I’m sure it’s very neat,” Javert countered.

            “Not as neat as yours,” Jean replied, and Javert felt a laugh choke its way through his throat.

            “I’m not exactly a healthy standard to hold yourself to.”

            Jean hummed at that. “In front of my bookshelf there’s a cabinet with some photos on it, of Cosette, mostly. Now, tit for tat, Javert – what can you feel in your arms?”

            Javert huffed out a short laugh. “My shoulders feel heavy,” he said. “They’re raised because I’m leaning over. The desk is hard under my elbows, but warm where they’re on it. I can feel the skin of my forearm and upper arm touching, it’s sticky. The phone is hot and kind of damp in one hand, my face is – also warm and damp in the other.”

            “Do you want me to come over, Javert?”

            He shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I think I’ll be okay.”

            “You can leave work now on the basis of illness.”

            “I have reports to do.”

            Jean’s sigh hissed through the phone to Javert’s ear.

            “Will you come over when you’re done?”

            Javert sniffed, and wiped at his nose.

            “Yes.”

            “Will you _stay_ over?”

            “Maybe. Definitely, if the rain holds out.”

            Jean was smiling. Javert couldn’t see it, but he knew it was true.

            “Are you all right?” Jean said, smiling, definitely smiling, small and a bit sad but still there.

            “I will be,” Javert said. “I didn’t arrest them,” he went on, out of the blue. “The kid I caught stealing today. And not because they made me think of you, I just – they broke a law. I should’ve arrested them, but they said they were hungry, and they definitely looked it, and a background check showed no priors and low socio-economic status, and they gave the money back, and I paid for the bread, so.” He breathed, slowly. “I just took their statement and made a note in the file, so if they do it again it’ll show up, but no criminal record.”

            “What if there _had_ been priors?” Jean asked, very quietly. Javert breathed some more. “What if there were prior offenses, would you have let them go then?”

            Javert swallowed. “Depends on the offenses,” he muttered. “Violence, maybe. Could be a warning sign. Intermittent petty theft, probably. Theft neither petty nor intermittent…” He sighed. “A habitual thief is a threat to the other people. That outweighs the mercy of understanding someone in need.”

            “They could have just been repeatedly driven to stealing what they need because of poverty,” Jean said. “Lack of means.”

            “My point stands,” said Javert. “Habitual theft is a threat to others. I can’t fix the fact that Centrelink is inefficient.”

            Jean clicked his tongue. He said: “How are you feeling?”

            “Calmer,” Javert said. “Thank you.” There was a thought circling his mind, about crime and culpability and protests and deaths in custody, and he forced himself to keep breathing steadily. Before, he would have been able to dismiss the thought: to toss it aside and forget about it, reassuring himself with the lie that the law was just and correct, and nothing else mattered more. Now, he felt himself stumbling. Almost in compulsion, he asked: “Who’s at fault?”

            Jean, of course, could no more read minds than anyone else – certainly not over the phone – so Javert backtracked on the thought, and went on.

            “When a person can’t afford to eat even when they’re on benefits so they steal bread and money from businesses and people who uphold the system which reinforces wealth inequality, who’s at fault?” he said, trying to stop himself from babbling. “When protesters and police officers clash, who’s at fault? When a man breaks parole to free himself from a flawed system which is required to monitor and rehabilitate violent criminals, who’s at fault?” He let a steady breath out into his hand, and fell silent. Eventually, Jean replied.

            “No one,” he said. Javert felt like retching.

            “Everyone,” he replied. “Everyone.”  He swallowed, and a long, weary sigh drew itself out of his chest, and he pressed his hand harder into his eyes. “I wish I’d never met you,” he muttered. “The world was much easier in black and white.”

            This time, he knew that Jean wasn’t smiling. Instead, he could almost picture the solemn turn of his mouth, balanced by gentle, dark eyes.

            “Unfortunately,” Jean said, “there are always shades of grey. Or brown, in my case.”

            Javert snorted, and dropped his hand to the desk, opening his eyes. _Computer screen, office door, filing cabinet, old coffee cup, phone base,_ he listed to himself. He wished he could hold Jean’s hand.

            “Will I see you tonight?” Jean asked, and Javert nodded without thought.

            “Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Jean.” He mustered his strength. “I love you.”

            “You too,” Jean sighed. “Will you be all right?”

            “I’ll be all right.” It wasn’t a lie.

            “Goodbye, then,” said Jean, and Javert replied – “Bye” – and that was that. He kept himself from fumbling, and hung up the phone. He could breathe, and he could think, and he could work: that much at least, he knew, was for the moment true.

 

            The next morning, Javert woke up feeling wrung out and thin, weak-kneed even just around his own flat. His throat hurt, as if he’d shouted for hours, and his eyelashes were stuck together as if he’d cried in his sleep. He washed his face with rough, scrubbing hands, and let out a low _“eugh”_ at his reflection; but he also made himself coffee, and drank a lot of water, and combed his hair more thoroughly than usual.

            The cases would come and go, and he would manage, and that would have to be enough.

 

* * *

 

            “Hey dad, I was thinking.”

            Jean looked up from where he was hauling milk crates in from the front step of the café.

            “What’s that, sweetheart?”

            Cosette swapped out a stick of blue chalk for green, and filled in another of the fairy lights she was drawing near the ceiling of the chalkboard wall.

            “Why don’t you just give Javert a set of keys to the house?” she said, almost too casually. “He’s started staying over at least once a week, why make yourself keep getting up to let him in?”

            Jean let out a brief laugh as he stepped outside for another crate.

            “It wouldn’t help if he could just pop in and out,” he said, setting the crate down next to the others. “If I’m already asleep in my room, we couldn’t possibly both fit in my bed, and if he’s going to sleep alone, I think he’d rather do it in his own flat.” He stepped out for the last crate, and Cosette swapped green for pink.

            “That’s the other thing,” she said, scribbling in a circle of colour. “I think you should move into the spare room.”

            Jean froze, halfway to the kitchen and with a crateful of milk in his arms. Cosette turned to face him across the empty café, standing on a stepladder with chalk still in hand.

            “I’ve always said your room’s too small for you,” she said kindly. “We could turn your room into a spare room and study, then you and Javert could share the spare room. If we put another wardrobe or something in there, there’d be enough room for all your clothes plus some of his he can leave here, instead of having to bike back to Petersham just to pick up a shirt like he did last time.”

            Slowly, Jean started moving again, carrying the milk through to the kitchen. When he came back out, his expression was very carefully composed.

            “You’re saying you think Javert should move in with us,” he said. “Is this because – because you’ll be moving out?”

            “Oh, no, of course not,” Cosette startled, dropping chalk into the little bucket hanging off her arm and stepping off the ladder. “That’s not happening for months yet at least, and I’m not saying he should just _move in_ right away.”

            “Because he wouldn’t want to,” Jean went on. “He needs space, he needs his routines, he wouldn’t want to move in like that all of a sudden –”

            “I know, dad, I know,” Cosette soothed, dragging the stepladder along the wall. “But if he had a set of keys and just a few things here – he keeps coming over anyway,” she sighed. “If he’s going to be here… why not make it a little easier on him?”

            Without speaking, Jean crossed the room and picked up another crate, carrying it around the counter as Cosette climbed up again and went on colouring in lights.

            “So you…” Jean started, and cleared his throat as he piled the milk cartons on the counter. “You wouldn’t mind if he was passing in and out sometimes?” he said. “Without warning? What if he saw you without your hijab by accident?”

            Cosette shrugged it off. “I checked with my imam yesterday,” she said. “The way we figure it, if you two are in a committed relationship, even if you’re not married or living together permanently, because you _can’t_ get married anyway – he counts as my _mahram_. Like a step-dad, I guess. So I don’t have to worry about that.”

            Jean swallowed, dragging the empty crate around the counter and easily lifting another.

            “I’m not saying you have to,” said Cosette, watching him over her shoulder. “And I know you only like doing nice things for everyone but yourself, but –”

            “Cosette, I don’t _need_ a bigger room,” Jean sighed, “we’ve been over this a hundred times –”

            _“No,”_ she drawled, “you don’t think you _deserve_ one. I can tell the difference, dad. But you _will_ need a bigger one if Javert keeps staying over. We can hardly call it the spare room if it’s not actually spare half the time.”

            “Once a week is not _half the time,”_ Jean admonished, but Cosette was undeterred.

            “Would you at least talk to him about it?” she said, filling in the last of the chalkboard lights.

            Jean shifted more milk cartons from the crate, and started stacking them into the fridges under the counter. “I can’t promise anything,” he said; then, at Cosette’s frowning glance, added – “but I _will_ talk to him. When I see him next.”

            “So…” Cosette looked at her wrist as if checking a watch that wasn’t there – “in about half an hour, then.”

            Jean scoffed at her, but he was smiling as he did.

 

            “Why is your daughter staring daggers into my back?”

            Javert sipped his coffee and arched one eyebrow at Jean across their table. Above them, a string of brightly-coloured chalk fairy lights adorned the wall, over a neatly-scrawled slogan which read: ‘WISHING ALL OUR STAFF, CUSTOMERS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS A BRIGHT AND JOYOUS DIWALI’. Jean glanced over Javert’s shoulder at the counter, and sighed.

            “They’re aimed at me,” he said, “not you. Don’t worry.”

            “All right,” Javert said, in clipped tones, as he set down his cup, “why is she staring daggers at _you_ then? I’ve never known Cosette to hold a grudge.”

            Jean swallowed; licked his lips; leaned over a little closer, hand clasped together on the table between them. “We, um,” he began, as Javert’s eyes went wide with apprehension – “oh heavens, Javert, this isn’t easy – we just –”

            _“What_ is going on, Jean?” Javert snapped. Jean briefly and vividly thought of a wolf snapping its jaws in fearful defence.

            “We’d just like to ask if you –” Jean stammered, “if you might, maybe, like to leave some things here for when you stay over?”

            Javert’s apprehension was slipping into rather slack-jawed shock.

            “Just, you know, a few clothes and a toothbrush kind of thing, we’re not asking you to move in,” Jean hastily explained. “Cosette was saying that I should move into the spare room and we can make _my_ room the spare room, so that we don’t have to worry about shifting around when you come over late at night.” He took a breath. “And we can give you keys to the house so I don’t always have to let you in. I mean, I’m perfectly happy staying in my room, but the bed is too small for both of us, so it would – make sense, you see, since you’re staying over more and more often, and…”

            He trailed off pathetically, having said all he needed to say. Javert’s hand was on his coffee cup in its saucer on the table, utterly still. Then suddenly:

            “Yes,” he said. “Yes please.”

            Jean reared back a little. “You – really?” he said. “You’d like to?”

            “I – …” Javert’s voice seemed to have deserted him, along with all thought. He shook himself and cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said again. “I hadn’t thought of it, I hadn’t considered it at all, I didn’t think you’d – and Cosette is – what am I saying, that’s what the daggers were for, she _wanted_ you to ask –” His long, dark fingers tapped against the side of his cup. “I can’t move in permanently, you understand that,” he said, with an almost sidelong glance at Jean. “Maybe, one day, I haven’t thought about it, but I have my own flat, I have a life I’m used to –”

            “Absolutely,” Jean said, nodding fervently, “that’s what I told Cosette, you’re a creature of habit and all –”

            “But yes,” Javert interrupted. “Keys to the house, and – and you can move into the bigger room, I’ll bring a change of clothes and pyjamas and some things, maybe over the weekend, and…”

            They both fell silent. After a long moment, a broad, warm grin began to spread across Jean’s face, blooming into life, and Javert was helpless to resist mirroring it. His teeth were showing, and he hid them behind his coffee cup as Jean lunged across the table to grip his free hand. A moment later, his head shot up, and he caught Cosette’s eye across the counter on the other side of the room, and signed:

            _‘He said yes!’_

            Javert snorted into his coffee, setting it back down and using both hands to raise Jean’s and kiss his knuckles.

            “It’s not like you _proposed,”_ he muttered. “Calm down.”

            But Jean was watching the space over his shoulder.

            “If you don’t want Cosette to hug you,” he said, “I think you should say so now.”

            “What are you t—”

            All of a sudden, someone barrelled into him from behind, rocking him forward, and two gangly arms wrapped around his front.

            “Thank you, thank you, thank you Javert!” Cosette trilled in his ear. “Oh, you make him so happy, you don’t even know – I’ll get you some keys cut after uni today, thank you so much, I promise you’ll be so happy here, you won’t regret it!”

            Bemused, Javert reached up with one hand to pat Cosette’s arm, as Jean’s expression all but melted with warmth and love for the two people in front of him.

            “Just – just don’t start calling me _dad_ or anything,” Javert muttered, “I’m not sure I could handle it.”

            Cosette laughed behind his ear and hugged him tighter.

_“Never,”_ she grinned. “Not the fearsome Inspector Javert. I think _father_ will have to do –”

            Javert choked, and a sort of squawking noise escaped his throat, before his caught sight of Jean’s half-amused, half-admonishing smile and realised he was being messed with.

            “You little brat,” he growled, trying and failing to sound intimidating.

            “All right, Cosette, I think you can let go,” Jean soothed, still smiling. “He gets the point."

 

            That afternoon, he got a text from Cosette, telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to come over to the café that evening after work and pick up the keys she’d had cut for him. When he went over at six o’clock, with the sun still high and bright behind the clouds above him, he could see Jean and Cosette waiting for him in the café while Gavroche and his friend held the counter.

             _'Coffee?’_ Gavroche signed as he entered, and Javert nodded, replying _‘No milk,’_ with two dollars fifty already in his hand. Only once he’d ordered and paid properly did Javert then turn towards the table near the back corner of the café, where Jean and Cosette were waiting.

            “I hear you have keys for me,” Javert grumbled as he sat opposite them. “How much do I owe you?”

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Cosette scoffed, holding out three keys on a ring which clattered between them. “Gold’s for the back gate, silver’s for the back door,” she said, “and the square one’s for the café door.”

            “You’re giving me a key to the café?” Javert frowned, silencing the loud handful with his palm. Cosette shrugged.

            “Makes sense, if you’ve got the others,” she said. “Try not to use it after about ten PM, once everything’s shut up and cleaned for good, but it could come in handy. I think you should sit closer to dad now, he’s about to start crying.”

            “I am _not_ about to start crying,” Jean laughed, voice sounding suspiciously thick. “I would like you a bit closer, though.”

            Javert looked at him, nonplussed. The keys in his hand were already warm from Cosette holding them, but they were growing warmer. Absently, he half-stood, and dragged his seat around the table to Jean’s other side, where Jean held Javert’s free hand with both of his, twined their fingers together, and leaned in to kiss Javert’s cheek.

            “Thank you,” he said, in a hushed voice. Javert returned the kiss, avoiding Jean’s beard, and looked back at the keys in his hand.

            “I’m not certain I believe this is happening,” he said, in a flat voice. He looked up at Jean, then Cosette, once more. “You’d let me into your lives like this.”

            Jean’s hand tightened around his, and Cosette leaned on her hand, elbow on the table, tilting her head to one side to watch him with a wide expression somewhere between fondness and exasperation.

            “I told you,” she said, “you make him happy. What more excuse do we need?”

            Javert had no response to that. Instead, he hooked his finger through the keyring and tucked the sharp ends out of the way, then added his hand to the pile between him and Jean, feeling something swell behind his collarbone.

_“Cosette, we’ve got a code red!”_ called a voice from the counter. “Gavroche feels sick just from looking at them and even _I_ can’t handle the cuteness enough to come over there, you’ll have to deliver this coffee for us.”

            Javert looked up at Grantaire across the room and scoffed, glowering at them and Gavroche (who was at that moment both steaming milk and fake-retching into a bin) while Cosette laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” he grumbled, as his hands and Jean’s promptly uncurled, “I’ll get it.”

            “I mean, no offense,” Grantaire shrugged, holding out Javert’s cup and saucer over the counter as he approached, “it’s just, y’know. Might be catching. We’ve all got incipient crushes on Leblanc anyway, it wouldn’t do to encourage them when he’s so happy with you.”

            “Shut up,” Javert mumbled as he took his coffee, but Grantaire only shook their messy curls out of their eyes and grinned.

            “Or what, you gonna charge me?”

            “No.” Javert cocked his head. “But I will tell Samuel Feuilly about the dreidel you’re making for him for Chanukah.”

            Grantiare’s mouth went wide in a scandalised gasp.

            “You wouldn’t _dare.”_

            “Not to mention the dinner your friends are planning.”

            Grantaire gasped again, clapping one hand to their chest.

            “Or your donation gathering for Beyond Blue.”

            Grantaire’s other hand flew up to replace the one on their chest, which they threw behind them to steady their stumbling against the counter behind them. They threw a sidelong, narrowed glance up at Javert.

            “You’re a wily one, Inspector,” they drawled. “Point granted.”

            Javert smirked, and turned back, coffee in hand, to the two people who had shown him more grace than he’d ever expected. They both smiled – Jean a little ashen, Cosette all too open – and Javert gravitated between the café tables on an inexorable path towards them.

 

* * *

 

            In the end, it all wrapped up far too neatly. Just over a month after the release of the petition with Javert’s name emblazoned on the top, he received an email from the Commissioner’s office, congratulating him on his involvement in the pursuit of justice against Senior Sergeant Hills and commending him for his attention to duty within the force. Javert knew that, behind the email, lay a simpering political smile on the commissioner’s face, and the seething expressions of his superintendents and countless other officers who saw him as a traitor. Nevertheless, as he read the email, a small part inside him – somewhere a little above his gut – loosened with relief. It was as close to an official pardon as he would receive; if he was to be fired, it would not be for this transgression.

            He told himself, and tried to believe, that there would be no more transgressions. When the idea still rang hollow, Javert worked late, filing an arrest warrant request at one in the morning when he knew he’d identified his latest homicide, then stepping across the road to let himself into Jean and Cosette’s house. Jean was already asleep when Javert slipped into the bedroom – skirting the half-moved furniture and baskets of clothes and belongings strewn about – and he changed into his pyjamas in darkness and silence, then brushed his teeth, and shut off all the lights behind him. He eased himself onto the bed, slipping his legs under the covers, and shuffled down, trying not to disturb Jean, who nevertheless half-opened his eyes and mumbled something incoherent over his shoulder. Javert kissed his temple and lay down, curling himself around Jean’s broad back and narrow waist and burying his face between his shoulder blades.

            Nightmares came that night. Javert had suffered from them for as long as he could remember, creeping up when he was particularly sleep-deprived or stressed. Since his inauguration as a police officer, they had usually focused on homicides he’d worked: bloody crime scenes, or bloodier motives, and the sensation – never half so intense when he was awake – of loss and helplessness in a dangerous, chance-driven world. Every so often, it was the kidnapping: memories of being beaten and drugged when he was barely a sergeant, and detective for the first time. They had tied him up in some warehouse out west, and kicked him until he vomited blood and still refused to tell them how much his colleagues knew. Then he’d been left alone for what he later learned was three days, starving, dehydrated, unable to move, and in so much pain that it almost overshadowed the dread and humiliation of knowing that he would almost certainly die there, fouled, stinking, and having failed in his duty.

            Awake, he could talk about it as a matter of fact, with merely a shrug. It was only at night that it haunted him, and turned him into a trapped and terrified wolf which curled in on itself and clutched at Jean Valjean’s sides until its nails almost broke the skin. He woke up only when Jean grabbed his wrists and forced his hands away.

            “It’s okay,” Jean had murmured, stroking Javert’s hands as Javert pressed his forehead to his back and cried softly and messily. “I understand. You’re safe, I promise.”

            It struck Javert, half-asleep and half-panicking, that Jean probably had nightmares of his own, and that he himself had to be the cause of some of them. It struck him that, if he did indeed keep sleeping there, he would learn about them first-hand, and with terrifying, unfixable clarity. Still, in the moment, his neck ached and he felt the phantom pains of hunger and shame, beatings and fear, and they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

            The next morning, he would tell Jean about the email over coffee and breakfast in the kitchen above the café, as Jean braided Cosette’s hair and she blearily checked Twitter on her phone. It would be enough.

 

* * *

 

            “You remember Penrith?”

            “Of course I remember Penrith.”

            They were pressed almost on top of one another in Javert’s bed. After Javert had spent three days straight working on the streets or in his office without once showing his face at Madeleine’s, Jean had finally got hold of him via text and convinced him to go home and rest, and that he would meet him there. It had not taken long for Javert to shower, change into a pair of boxers, and collapse into bed, restlessly awake, yet bone-tired. Jean had stripped off his shoes and socks when he arrived, then his shirt, as the oppressive heat of the day lingered well into the evening in Javert’s dim, un-air-conditioned flat.

            “You remember,” Jean went on, slowly, “when you wouldn’t even shake my hand after they told you 24601 was about to face a retrial in Campbelltown, not roasting coffee beans in Penrith?”

            Only a part of Javert felt like laughing at that. He lifted his right hand from where it hung, listless, over Jean’s hip, and, in the light only of the street lamps outside, muffled by the blinds, he trailed his long fingers along Jean’s arm until he could hook their hands together above their bodies.

            “I remember,” he said. He did not want to think about what had come next.

            “I was so shocked,” Jean murmured. “I thought you were insulted because you knew I was a criminal. Then you said –”

            “Then I said that a corrupt police officer does not shake hands with a legitimate businessman,” Javert finished for him, blearily watching their hands. Jean’s silence told him plainly what he thought of that, so Javert went on. “It was a genuine fear,” he said, with a shrug in his tone. “I was a rising constable in the nineties. No matter how hard I tried, I was paranoid that someone I worked with would turn out to be corrupt, so by extension, I would be, too. It seemed such an easy way to fall. I’m sure half the reason I got promoted to sergeant was because I managed to come out of the Royal Commission with a clean slate.”

            “I doubt it,” said Jean. “You’re a very good police officer.”

            Javert raised his head and craned his neck to look at Jean’s face, brow creasing in confusion. “Very good at judging before I know all the facts and never allowing mercy, empathy, or the current situation to get in the way of harsh sentencing for minor infractions,” he said.

            “You’re getting better at that,” Jean replied coolly. “And you’ve always been good at keeping order and finding law-breakers. I would know.”

            Javert harrumphed, settling back down with his head nestled between the pillow and Jean’s arm and chest. They were damp and sticky wherever they touched. Javert’s feet dangled over the edge of the bed. It was too hot.

            “A servant of the law does not shake hands with the innocent citizen he has wronged,” Javert muttered, continuing the earlier thought. Jean squeezed his hand, and replaced it over his hip.

            “An inferior does not shake hands with a superior,” he finished for him. “You said a lot of things that day, I remember them all. It was a stressful time.”

            “In hindsight,” Javert drawled, “I’m kind of glad you didn’t demand my dismissal from the force.”

            “So am I. You _were_ right, after all.”

            Javert huffed through his nose, a lazy snort of derision.

            “Only in connecting you to your legal identity,” he said. “Nothing more.”

            “You were still right.” Jean said, matter-of-fact. “All those years of searching paid off more than once.”

            Javert had no response to that. In lieu of words, he stretched his chin up and fumbled at the edges of Jean’s beard until they were close enough for him to kiss what turned out to be Jean’s lower lip.

            “I’m glad I found you,” he whispered. “In the end.”

            Jean’s free hand – the one not bent under his head – stroked at the bare skin over Javert’s ribs, always worryingly prominent when he lay on his side. There was nothing to be said in response.

            “You know,” Jean eventually mused, “you’re the only person who knows about all that.” He clarified: “About Penrith. But about the prison, too, and Fantine, and the parole trial, and… You’ve always been there. I used to think about that like you were dangerous, hunting me, but now…”

            Javert filled in the silence. “Like a moth to a flame, I’d say,” he muttered. “In hindsight.”

            Jean kissed his forehead.

            “I should probably go,” he said. “Your flat’s an oven, we won’t survive the night if we both try to sleep here.”

            “I’d rather you stayed,” said Javert – “but I see your point.”

            “You should get a proper air conditioner.”

            “I should get my fan fixed,” Javert countered; and they left it at that.

 

* * *

 

            _[A Snapchat, to Jean F. In the foreground, Jiemba Bahorel grins at the camera. Over her shoulder, Inspector John Javert can be seen in the background, in uniform, steadfastly berating a white constable with their baton out. The caption reads “@redfern tent embassy, proud of ur bae”.]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually know if Auslan does or does not have separate signs for 'menorah' and 'chanukiah', but the sign bank I've been using for reference doesn't recognise either, so... I'm also not certain whether _Israeli_ sign language registers a difference, but considering as how that's Hebrew-based, I imagine it does. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
> 
> Centrelink is Australia's human services department, dealing with benefits for unemployed people, students, retirees, people with disabilities, etc etc.
> 
> From 1995-1997, a Royal Commission into the NSW Police Force was conducted to investigate allegations of systematic corruption within the force. The investigation resulted in the resignation of then-commissioner Tony Lauer, the dismissal of a large number of senior officers, and a number of reforms, including drug and integrity testing for police officers, legislative and procedural changes (including questioning and investigation techniques), and the establishment of the Police Integrity Commission.
> 
> And now, some links!!  
> First off, I made [an R-themed playlist](http://cuddlytogas.tumblr.com/post/132191474260/there-is-but-one-certainty-my-full-glass-a) a little while ago which was sort of implicitly about the R in this AU.  
> Second, even more of a little while ago, I commissioned Jay [hatarlakrits](http://hatarlakrits.tumblr.com) to do a piece of beautiful art for this AU, which can be seen [here](http://cuddlytogas.tumblr.com/post/135773943615/approximately-a-million-years-ago-when-i-was-still)! It turned out really gorgeous and I'm in love with it very much.  
> Finally, for my birthday, my friend Katie made me [this gorgeous felt doll](https://www.instagram.com/p/9GiPknOT5m/) of this AU's Javert!!! Isn't he beautiful (his hat comes off!)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Because Fuck You. That's Why](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746793) by [let_it_be_extraordinary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/let_it_be_extraordinary/pseuds/let_it_be_extraordinary)




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